


The Merling Queen

by Renaerys



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: All angst all the way, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caribbean mythology, F/M, Kwamis Are Gods, Mermaid Mythology, Pirate AU, also wow i did not expect the gabenath to hit me so hard but here we are, chloe was born to be a pirate captain why has this not been done yet, guess what there's ANGST, here there be monsters, luka has lost his cinnamon roll status, mermaid au, prepare to be murdered, that M rating is for smut, think Black Sails meets Little Mermaid, which i will forewarn in the chapter notes, with very limited moral compasses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renaerys/pseuds/Renaerys
Summary: Twenty years ago, Gabriel Agreste lost everything. For the sake of his newborn son, he vows to journey to the ends of the world and beyond to break a curse that has plagued his family for a thousand years. But some curses walk among us, old friends that linger and love, and once challenged, they may just fight back.





	1. Prologue: The Wrecking

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the Obligatory Mermaid AU! And by mermaids, I mean the flesh-eating, badass sea predators sailors legitimately feared. Many cultures have mermaid lore, which provided me with plenty of inspiration for this fic. I’ve also researched Caribbean mythology, the Golden Age of Piracy, and various sea-related mythologies of the world in order to keep things interesting and eclectic. I know this AU has been done ad nauseam, but I’ve done my best to provide you guys with what I hope will be a fresh take on it. 
> 
> This fic will feature Adrinette and ChloLuka on fairly equal footing, meaning neither is a sub-pairing. Some GabeNath too, because I'm obsessed and want to pour salt in the Angst wounds I'm about to rip open. Enjoy!

Dark waters parted for the _Sea Spear_ ’s prow like a maid on her wedding night, shy and viscous-slow. They gnashed at the ship’s stern, scrabbling claws searching for a handhold in their shadowy ruin. Grey clouds clung to the stars, shy eyes averted from the cutting course the _Sea Spear_ carved. Even the wind held her breath tonight.

Captain Gabriel Agreste peered at a nearby cluster of black, oily rocks sprouting from the sea like gout tumors, bulbous and bursting should the _Sea Spear_ venture too close. But she would not, not under his careful tutelage. 

He tugged at the white collar of his uniform, French Navy standard-issue, and swallowed deeply. The night was chilly even in his heavy, blue coat, but a feverish warmth itched at his throat, unquenchable. Only a skeleton crew was up and manning the ship while the rest snored peacefully below decks, and of those only Gabriel stood alone at the starboard prow, watching as the world passed him by. 

A week’s time, favorable winds willing, and he would be home. A silver cloud caressed the full moon and bore its face to him, lily-white light casting upon his cheeks. Emilie liked to say that the moonlight cast men in their true light, tempting the soul to the surface to bare. He imagined her looking up at the moon tonight, her own soul bared with his own. Did she think of him as he thought of her? 

A week’s time, and he would make an honest woman of her. The many months at sea fighting a distant king’s battles had made Gabriel weary. It had not been his choice to join the king’s navy, but his father’s. He longed to see his love, hold her again. She had promised him sons, boys who would grow up as dashing and brave as their father. He had promised her the world, and all its treasures hidden in the deep. She said he could keep his baubles and poems; all she wanted was him. 

A rare smile graced the lonely captain’s face. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her fingers on his cheek, feather light and moon-bright. He could taste her lips, sweet with a secret smile. He could hear her voice, high and melancholy, adrift amongst the waves.

_“Come back from the sea, my darling, to me,  
And make me a bride of your own.”_

Gabriel’s leaden heart quaked at the sound, so close and real. Unconsciously, he leaned over the railing in search of that alchemical voice. Eyes full of moonbeams and a tongue heavy with words left unsaid, his heart called back to her. 

She was close now, abyssal eyes bright in the shadows, her hair crowned with corals and starlight pearls. Her body coiled over the rocks like a serpent’s, long and scaled black with all the powers of the darkling sea. At her throat, an incandescent ruby pulsed, hypnotic, and her bloody lips parted in a cruel smile.

_“Or else for your sake my poor heart it will break,_  
_And here I shall die all alone, alone,_  
_And here I shall die all alone.”_

Gabriel’s foot slipped, and if not for his hand on the railing, he may have taken a tumble into the sea below. The rocky islands dwindled behind the _Sea Spear_ , barren save for the breaking waves’ clutches. But as Gabriel stared through the inky darkness, his heart pounded and his throat grew dry. For that had not been a vision of his beloved, risen from the trenches on sea foam and a siren’s song. 

White as a sheet, Gabriel looked to the full moon above. His cheek was cold, the dream of Emilie’s fingers snuffed out, and there was only that pale, unfeeling eye left to peer into his soul. A sudden dread, strangling and visceral, gripped his heart and squeezed. Gabriel woke as if from a trance and flew across the deck, shouting for his crew to waken, to hoist the sails and lower the oars. 

When his first mate, sleep-winded by dreams, asked him what the matter was, Gabriel only snapped at him to pull on his breeches and man his post. They were to make all haste home, the winds and waters be damned. 

Oars stabbed the viscous sea as the crew set a frenetic pace and plunged the _Sea Spear_ deeper into darkness. Gabriel turned his face west as he stood at the prow, jaw clenched and knuckles white. He tried to picture his beloved, her hair as golden as the sun and eyes that shamed the stormy seas, but all he could see was darkness, thick as smoke in his lungs. 

And the portentous voice that followed him, spurred him onwards as the sea dragged him back, clung to him like a curse.

* * *

 

“Sir, you have a son.”

The leathern midwife clutched a quiet bundle in her arms, but Gabriel did not look at her. His eyes were transfixed upon the pale face in the bed dressed in white, still and silent. His body would not move, and his tongue filled his mouth like wet cotton. Perhaps if he remained here, statuesque with bated breath, Emilie would remain here, too. 

“Sir,” the midwife said again, this time more softly. “Please, I did everything I could.”

Her words were an electric shock to the system, and Gabriel’s hand reached out and touched Emilie’s cheek. It was frozen to the touch, cold as a moonbeam. He remembered her phantom fingers on his face as he gazed up at the moon out at sea, light given form and freedom. She had been there, too, her soul gazing into his. And there she would remain.

All at once, he saw her there on the bed, bloodless and bone-dry. Her flaxen hair was brittle in its braid, her lips bruised with clot. Her belly bulged beneath the sheet, deadened white concealing the red ruin inside, a corpse bride on her wedding day. The longer he looked at her, the more he forgot her. 

“Adrien,” the midwife said.

Gabriel finally whirled on her, unable to look at the husk wearing his beloved’s face a moment longer. Tears blurred the midwife’s pock-marked face, and he blinked. 

“What?”

“Your son,” she said again. “That was the name she chose for him.”

“My son…”

The midwife smiled sadly and held out the swaddled babe to him. “Won’t you hold him?"

Gabriel accepted the bundle without thinking, surprised by the weight of it. For one so small, he carried such a heavy burden. His cheeks were pink and his wispy hair and lashes so blond they were nearly white—moon-bright.

And he knew, instantly, that it had been that night. That moment. The moon, the fever, the black sea, the haunting dirge that made his blood sing and turned his heart to stone in his chest. That very moment…

“Adrien,” he said, hardly recognizing his own voice. 

The babe gurgled, waking from sleep, and opened his eyes. So bright and green, so _alive_ , as if they’d stolen all the light his mother had to give, all the better to see the world. His father had promised the world, after all, and all its treasures hidden in the deep.

All at once, the scales fell from Gabriel’s eyes, and he fell with them. Quaking, his leaden heart split in two and he clutched Emilie’s cold, dead fingers in one hand as he held the son she’d promised him in the other. He choked, the grief and anger a wrecking. Let him drown. Let the stones fill his pockets, the sea slake his thirst, let him follow her down to the deep where there lay treasures beyond anything she could ever dream. Let them go together, hand in hand, never letting go. 

But she was gone, alone, just as he’d been warned. And all that was left to Gabriel was the melody of his curse. 

* * *

 

_Aren’t you bored of this yet? A thousand years you’ve been watching._

_A thousand years and Death never fails to surprise me._

_You are cruel to laugh at them. They know no better._

_Aye, cruel I am, but not half so cruel as you._

_It is not my curse that brings Death._

_Haven’t you realized by now? Life is the cruelest curse of all._

_Run along then and have your fun, if you must. You know not the misfortune you bring._

_No, my lady, it is he who knows naught. But he shall grow, and he shall learn. They always do._

* * *

 

Gabriel buried the woman who had not lived long enough to become his wife. Into the ground she went, buried under earth and stone, as far from the sea as the small church graveyard would allow. Next to him, a wet nurse held his son to her breast while the pastor recited the final rites. And behind him, his crew, the governor, and a slew of townsfolk had turned out to support Captain Gabriel Agreste, lauded officer in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. 

But Gabriel saw none of them, heard not their whispered condolences. _Before her time_ , they said. _Too much blood_ , they said. _A tragedy_ , they said. Childbirth was a woman’s battleground, and not without its casualties. She’d fought well, the midwife had assured him. As if it mattered. As if it changed anything. 

Emilie had died fighting, that much was true, but it wasn’t the natural peril of childbirth that had faced her under the light of a sordid moon. No, her foe was an ancient evil, a curse upon the Agreste name for a thousand years, and it would remain so for a thousand years more. 

Unless he ended it.

The mourners left, and Gabriel remained—he and the son Emilie had named. _Adrien_ , for the sea his father loved so much, and his father before him, and his father even before him, stretching back a thousand years. And so it would remain for a thousand more.

He believed it now.

Gabriel would break the curse upon their family as all had failed to do before him. But with each failure came a little bit of knowledge, hoarded like gold and buried deep with the ones they had dared to love. It might be buried with Emilie, too, but not today. 

A cat meowed at Gabriel’s feet, one of the many strays that lived on the island and stowed away on ships, tolerated but not welcomed. He cast it a glance—black as pitch, with glowing, green eyes. Green like his son’s, and green like his dead lover’s. It watched him, paw raised for a licking, as if Gabriel had interrupted its own mourning ritual. Black cats were said to bring misfortune wherever they went, but there was little more that could prevail upon him today. 

“Nathalie,” Gabriel spoke at long last to the wet nurse minding Adrien. 

“Yes, sir?” Her voice, like her pinched face, was mousy and meek. She was barely sixteen and out on the streets when the midwife brought her to him. She’d lost her own little one, perhaps by the grace of some whimsical god who’d seen it in their heart to spare her the hardship and ignominy of a child out of wedlock, only to stumble into the heart of another’s tragedy. 

“You can read.”

Mousy and meek she may have been, but Nathalie Sancoeur was literate, unlike so many common men and women in this selfish world. Her lover had taught her her letters, the midwife had explained to Gabriel—another parting gift. This one she’d held on to, and it was the only reason Gabriel had agreed to hire her over the others offered up to him. 

“Yes, sir,” Nathalie said.

“I want you to prepare Adrien and yourself for the trip to Hispaniola. We leave this evening. My family’s archives are there.”

“Archives… Books, sir? Do you mean to do some reading?”

Adrien gurgled at her breast, fussy, and she smoothed his flaxen hair to soothe him. 

“I mean for you to do some reading,” Gabriel clarified. “I won’t have you ignorant and slow. If you’re going to nurse my son, you cannot be a liability.”

Nathalie watched him with big, brown eyes. A child’s eyes, really. But there was a hidden strength in them. Gabriel supposed there had to be, considering the harrowing ordeal she’d been through before she’d stumbled onto his doorstep. “I won’t be a liability, sir. On my word.”

“We’ll see.”

“Sir, if—if I may be so bold… What kind of reading am I to do?”

Gabriel set his jaw. The black cat was purring now as it rubbed against his leg. “…What do you know of mermaids?”

* * *

 

Captain Gabriel Agreste never showed up for duty the following week. 

* * *

 

When the authorities eventually searched his family home in Hispaniola, they found no sign of the missing captain, his infant son, or any clue as to their whereabouts. They also did not find a chest of rare nautical maps and a collection of ancestral journals dating back centuries in the archives. The Agreste family coffers had been drained and cashed out and title to the family plantation tendered to a neighboring plot. Gabriel Agreste had vanished, along with his infant son and a common girl acting as the boy’s wet nurse, as if they had never existed at all. 

* * *

 

WANTED

Sailors and Skilled Swordsmen for Independent Crew Aboard the _Hawk Moth_

No Prey, No Pay

Inquire Directly With Captain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think so far!


	2. Power in a Name

** 20 YEARS LATER **

The _Queen Wasp_  was rather magnificent floating in the harbor at Nassau. Thirty-one meters long, full-rigged, and boasting twenty-two cannons, she was as deadly as she was beautiful. Chloe Bourgeois admired her ship from the window by her solitary table as she sipped warm rum and nibbled on her dinner. Even though she’d been its captain going on a year, she still swelled with pride and a little incredulity at the knowledge that the _Queen Wasp_  was entirely hers to command. 

Her crew were scattered about _Rena Rouge’s_ tavern, some in their cups, some haggling with tavern wenches, some breaking bread together. The latter group was four men strong, huddled together like fat rats escaping a hard rain. Chloe didn’t bother trying to listen in on their conversation—she knew exactly what they were gossiping about. 

She closed her eyes and lay back in her wooden chair. A moment’s peace, that was all she wanted. A night without a clamoring crew, shifty gazes, and hungry appetites. The tavern wenches were a reliable balm, and Madame Bustier had a reputation for keeping her girls cleaner and quieter than most. It was also the only tavern in the open canker sore that was Nassau Port where Chloe could get a night’s rest without the constant peril of midnight robbery or assault. 

Not that anyone in their right mind would try it with her once they put a name to the pretty face. Said pretty face had gotten her more trouble than it was worth, though. Even dressing in men’s clothes, stinking of brine and rum, and openly carrying cutlass and pistol alike on her person was not enough to deter the truly determined. Or the truly stupid.

“Let me get you a fresh cup,” said a man whose presence she felt hovering over her even with her eyes closed. 

_Speaking of which._

“I didn’t order another,” Chloe said automatically, not bothering even to open her eyes in the hopes that this callow boy would take the hint. 

“You look like you could use another. My treat.”

Determined then, not stupid. Usually, that was worse.

Chloe sighed and opened her eyes, but the rude retort died on her lips at the sight of the boy looming next to her table. Except this was no boy, but a man built tall and strong. He was sun-kissed but clean, with a head full of hair so thick and dark it could have put the night sky to shame. His face was slender to match his frame, almost feminine in its bareness, but he had a strong jaw and a look in his silver eyes that told her he knew very well what she was thinking. 

He smirked and extended the rum bottle. “May I?”

Chloe narrowed her eyes. _Very determined_ , she decided, already feeling a headache coming on.

But she didn’t stop him topping off her drink—gods knew she needed it after the shit couple of weeks she’d had. She took a sip of the rum, savoring the sweet burn down her throat and the relaxing tingle it left in its wake. If only her simple pleasure was not ruined by the sight of her unnamed assailant still there, watching her through sleepy, half-lidded eyes. 

“Run along now,” Chloe said unkindly. 

“I’ll take my payment first,” he said. 

Chloe set down her cup and casually draped a hand over her sword hilt. “Will you, now.”

From the way he was looking at her, it was no great mystery what payment he had in mind. And yet, he made no move to draw closer, hovering instead just out of her personal space. 

“Your name will satisfy me,” he said. 

Unbidden, Chloe had a sudden, vivid flashback of her mother in a tavern not unlike this one many years ago, pliant with drink and stinking of smoke in her stained silks and satins. _There’s power in a name_ , she’d said in a moment of clarity as she snuffed out her pipe and loomed close to her young daughter—too young to be caught in a place like that without it catching a part of her, too. 

Audrey Simone had been many things, but stupid was not one of them. Chloe collected her words like pieces of silver: she tucked them away out of sight and was careful never to waste them. There was power in a name, especially a name like Chloe’s. 

“My name is worth more than one drink,” she said.

He ran his long fingers slowly down the neck of the rum bottle, eyes never leaving her face. “I see. Then I’ll return with a proper tribute.” He nodded politely. “By your leave.”

Chloe stared as he turned and walked away without a fuss. She wasn’t sure why she’d been stubborn—he could ask anyone here and learn her name, of course. Whether she consented or not was irrelevant. It bothered her, but she could not place why. Still, he’d left her in peace, and she wondered if she might revise her earlier judgment of him. 

It only occurred to her when she’d finished her drink that he never gave his name, either.

* * *

 

The next day, Chloe rose early and reached for her leathers and weapons automatically. It was only when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the private room she’d rented that she remembered what today was. Cursing, she called for assistance, and soon a young woman appeared carrying a heavy, wrapped garment in her arms. 

Alya Césaire was the tavern owner’s daughter by a local woman he’d met in Martinique—a witch, to hear some tell it by the way she’d ensnared the savvy French businessman, but they didn’t tell it within these walls if they wanted to keep their tongues. Alya was as easy on the eyes as she was on the heart, but had earned her stripes well enough running the kitchens and brewery while her parents managed the business. Her greatest asset in Chloe’s opinion, however, was her quick wit.

“I see you turned down my present last night,” Alya quipped as she glanced at the very unused bed. 

“I don’t need your charity,” Chloe said, beckoning for the dress Alya had brought her. There was a whalebone corset folded in with it, and the sight alone made Chloe seriously contemplate crawling back into bed and sleeping the day away. 

“Right, because you of all people are a charity case.” Alya grinned as she pushed Chloe’s long, blonde hair over her shoulder and began lacing the corset. 

Chloe caught her own reflection in the mirror. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and slender, on the surface she was everything a man like her aristocratic father could have ever hoped for in a daughter. He even forgave her being her mother’s daughter, too, and for that alone Chloe would always adore him, even if she could never truly be the daughter he wanted.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a wayward soul. Doomed to fall prey to the pernicious appetites of men. Woe is me.”

Alya snorted, and the extremely undignified sound coming out of a woman with a face like hers was enough to draw a smile out of Chloe. “Please. If you’re here to fish for compliments, you’d have had better luck with Luka.”

“So he has a name.” Chloe focused on trying to breathe while her lungs were constricted to the point of gorgeous in her corset. Alya helped her slip into the sunshine-yellow dress next.

“He’s sweet. I’d even go so far as to call him gentle.”

“Ah. Cunning, then. The most dangerous kind of scoundrel.”

Alya tugged on the laces at Chloe’s back, and Chloe gasped for air. “He’s not a scoundrel. I’m being serious.”

Chloe watched her as she finished lacing up the dress and began twisting her hair into an elegant bun. “High praise coming from you. But I wasn’t born yesterday. And beyond that, I have no interest.”

“Fine, fine. I just thought you could use a good hair pulling.” Alya tugged on her hair for emphasis, and Chloe swore. “All those months at sea make a girl lonely. Or so I’m told.”

Chloe had more important things to worry about than carnal satisfaction—like a crew rightfully displeased with the lack of plunder from their last pillaging. As captain, Chloe essentially had one job, and that was to keep her crew happy. Always, that meant keeping their pockets heavy with coin. Whether they squandered it in their cups, between sheets, or saved it (nobody ever saved it) was irrelevant. Heavy pockets ensured sharp swords, and out at sea, swords spoke loudest. 

She’d been good at it in the beginning. The youngest captain in the armada—and the only woman at that—she’d had something to prove from the beginning. Her sex promised that she always would, but it only served to motivate her. And there was nothing Chloe had more at her disposal than sheer fucking determination. She’d captured the _Queen Wasp_  herself, led her fledgling crew to victory and spoils that lasted them months, and earned their trust. Twenty and with barely a year under her belt as captain, she’d nonetheless earned a reputation for her shrewd intelligence and ruthless efficiency. The only thing sharper than her mind was her blade. 

But a meteoric rise meant a disastrous crash and burn should she ever fall, and Chloe felt herself slipping now. The last two raids had proven less than fruitful as rivals challenged her and targets grew savvier. Her reputation was growing, and with it came a level of respect that cut both ways. Maybe it was shit luck, or just poor intelligence. But that didn’t matter; all that mattered was her crew’s morale, which was nothing but dynamite with a short fuse these days. She needed a win, or she would face the consequences. 

And no matter what power her name held, it would not be enough to convince _that_ man to save her. 

“I have Kim to stave off the loneliness,” Chloe said, keeping her thoughts to herself.

Alya snorted again. “Your boatswain? Manly enough, I’ll give him that, but such a dolt…”

“We all have our parts to play.”

“Fair enough. Speaking of which, I hope you’re ready to play yours today.”

Chloe examined her reflection in the luxurious dress that chafed at her shoulders and bared a deal too much of her bosom to be comfortable. But beauty was not meant to be comfortable, and the only way to wield it properly was to pretend. Another silver piece from her mother’s cache. 

“It’s my father’s birthday,” Chloe said flatly. “I haven’t forgotten how to be a daughter.”

Alya gave her a look that said just how little she believed that. “Well, I’ll have some choice meat on the menu tonight if you decide to duck out early. And I’ll also be making dinner.”

It was Chloe’s turn to snort. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Alya grinned wickedly. “She taught me everything I know.”

* * *

 

Chloe returned to the tavern in time for dinner, not at all as planned. There was only so much she could take from her father’s social circle. It was almost as if the powdered wigs could not stomach to be around a manipulative, silver-tongued charmer with a penchant for duping unwitting men and plundering them for everything they had. Or maybe they just had something against pirates. 

Chloe snorted at her own dark thoughts. She’d been so ready for a proper drink and food not cut into dainty triangles that she marched over to her usual table by the window in full dress, looking every bit the proper French lady she absolutely was not. She felt eyes on her, some leering and some merely curious, and still others averted altogether. Power in a name, after all. 

Alya herself brought her dinner, and Chloe ignored the other patrons while she ate and drank her fill. Alya stayed and chatted for a bit, but soon went back to work. It was all the same to Chloe, who had too much on her mind to bother with keeping up a normal conversation. That is, until her quartermaster, Alix Kubdel, unceremoniously dropped into the seat opposite her. 

Universally alluring in an androgynous sort of way, Alix straddled her chair and leaned over the table. She was chewing tobacco and stank of sweat and salt, but watched Chloe with lucid, dark eyes. Huge freckles dappled her nose and cheeks from days spent under the sun, and her chestnut hair was a wild mess under her broad-rimmed hat. 

“Hope you had a nice, fancy time at your party, Cap’n,” Alix said, giving her a once-over. “You look like a canary in that dress.”

A canary, like the ones miners caged and brought down into the bowels of the earth to die in forewarning. Chloe pressed her lips in a grim line at the thought. “If you’re here about our lackluster plunder as of late, I’m well aware.”

“Glad you’re aware—I’m wondering what you’re gonna do about it.”

Music had begun to play, a lazy lyre tune, but a man’s voice joined the melody and began to sing very softly, almost unnoticed.

Chloe kept her face carefully blank as she studied Alix. Her quartermaster was among the most loyal of her crew, having been with Chloe since she took the _Queen Wasp_  for her own. Any trouble with the crew, and Chloe knew Alix would be the first to stand up and defend her and her decisions. But that wasn’t what made Alix a good partner. 

“I’m working on it,” Chloe hedged. 

“I need leads. What about the _Concorde_? I heard it’s making a trip out to these parts.”

Chloe shook her head. “Changed course for South Carolina. I confirmed as much today.” Perhaps there was something worth playing the part of doting daughter to an aristocrat for, however dirty it made her feel afterwards. 

Alix’s expression darkened. “Fuck, really? Chloe, we need something. There’s talk.”

“I know that.”

Of course she knew that. She was not an idiot. But hearing it from Alix, her eyes and ears among the crew, only confirmed her fears. If they didn’t catch a lucrative break soon, she could be facing a disgruntled crew. Mutiny was not a word used lightly, even among pirates, but with her lack of success lately, compounded by her youth and gender, it was not outside the realm of possibilities. 

“Any word from the _Hawk Moth_?” Alix said. 

“No. Agreste doesn’t need to know about our progress lately.”

Alix didn’t question her on this, and it only credited her further as Chloe’s quartermaster. Gabriel Agreste was not one to suffer fools or whiners, and Chloe would sooner die than come running to him. If she had a potential mutiny on her hands, that was her problem. Saying anything would likely only put her in more danger than she was already in. 

“Well, I suggest you think of something fast. I’m doing my best here, but I’m not a miracle worker.”

The music swelled, and the voice accompanying it swelled with it, the words suddenly clear over the din of the tavern patrons.

_“He disappeared so quickly,_  
_So headlong down went he,_  
_That he went out of sight_  
_Like a streak of light_  
_To the bottom of the deep blue sea.”_

Chloe was momentarily distracted by the voice, at once sweet and volcanic, pouring over the words as if to lather them in honey. The singer was Luka, the man who had approached her last night, and she was strangely drawn to his performance. That voice she’d mistaken for boyish before she’d seen him was silken and mellifluous, not the rough, salty grind of the sailors she lived with. She hadn’t thought a man’s voice could sound like that. 

“ _We lowered a boat to find him,_  
_We thought to see his corpse,_  
_When up to the top he came with a bang,_  
_And sang in a voice so hoarse,_  
_‘My comrades and my messmates,_  
_Oh, do not weep for me,_  
_For I’m married to a mermaid,_  
_At the bottom of the deep blue sea.’”_

“Did you hear me?” Alix said. 

“What?” Chloe said, having not heard her at all as she stared, transfixed, at Luka strumming on a lyre and singing for the ghosts of men who dared to court the deep.

“I was saying, maybe it’s a good idea to try for some smaller scores, sure things, you know? Just for now, to build morale. I’m telling you, these guys just want a good fuck and a cold brew. Give them the coin for that and they’re happy. Chloe? Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Chloe said, not really listening at all. “That’s fine, we can sail to Barataria Bay or something, see what’s come in.”

But her attention was on Luka and his alchemic voice that enchanted and transformed. Other patrons were also enraptured by his song, staring in quiet fascination as he serenaded them.

“ _Go to your ship and tell them,_  
_You'll leave them all for me;_  
_For you're married to a mermaid_  
_At the bottom of the deep blue sea.”_

He looked up and locked eyes with Chloe across the room as he sang, and she was momentarily powerless to look away. She forgot even where she was, what she was doing, as the singular thought of reaching for him consumed her. It was gone as soon as it had come, however, because Alix took her hand and snapped her back to attention. 

“Chloe? You still with me? This is important,” she said. 

Chloe shook her head to clear it, feeling light-headed and a little groggy. “Yes, sorry, I’m listening. Look, Alix, I need you to hold them off a little longer. I will get something, I swear to you. But I’m not involving Agreste. Over my dead body, you hear me? I don’t want the crew thinking that’s even on the table. This is my ship, my crew, my decision.”

Alix studied her, but she nodded her understanding. “Aye, Cap’n, your word is law. I’ll do what I can to keep it that way.”

“See that you do,” Chloe said, an edge to her voice. 

* * *

 

It was no great surprise that he came to bother her again as soon as Alix left and he finished his song. 

“Majesty,” he said, bowing a little and setting a bottle of dark plum wine on the table. 

Chloe fixed him with a glare. “Don’t be fooled by my dress. I had a prior engagement, but I’m no princess.”

“I hear you’re more of a queen than a princess.” 

Chloe was so burned out, so tired of today, and now to top it all off, she had a potential mutiny on her hands if she didn’t come through for her insatiable crew. “Try captain.”

His silvery gaze held hers, and not for the first time, she wondered at his strange eyes. There was something haunting about their gaze, something unknowable. Was he foreign?

“I’m not from these parts, if that’s what you mean,” he said. 

Chloe bit her tongue, annoyed that she’d voiced this thought out loud without realizing it. 

“Luka Couffaine,” he said, offering his hand. “May I?”

_May I._

Maybe it was the booze, or the tiring day, or his sorcerous voice, but Chloe found herself giving up her hand to him. He kissed her knuckles, his thumb passing over scars she’d earned when honing her skill with the sword. Those sleepy, silver eyes never left hers. 

“And you are…?” he asked. 

As if he didn’t already know. Even so, Chloe swallowed hard. There was power in a name, as much in owning it as giving it.

“Chloe Bourgeois. Captain of the _Queen Wasp_.”

His smile was something. “Majesty, indeed. The pleasure is mine.”

“Yes, it is.”

He slipped into the chair Alix had vacated and poured out two glasses of wine for them. His lyre was nowhere in sight.

“Sad song,” she said, eyeing him. “Bit dark for this crowd.”

“I like the sad ones.”

_Of course you do._

She took a sip of her drink and crossed her legs under the table, getting comfortable. “Do you dream of mermaids?”

He looked amused. “It’s only a song. Why do you ask?”

She shrugged. “You seem like the type.”

“Oh? And what type is that?”

“Pretty. Lonely.” She raised her glass to her lips. “Willing.”

He laughed lightly. “I’m sure any mermaid worth her seashells would find me wanting.”

“Well, I’m not one to presume what a fish wife would or would not find wanting.”

“Why the dress?” he asked, changing the subject. “It flatters you, but it doesn’t suit you.”

Despite herself, Chloe felt her pride swell. Either he was practiced and knew exactly what she wanted to hear, or he was lucky. With his agreeable demeanor, she settled for lucky, and her mood lifted now that he’d provided a distraction she didn’t know she needed. 

“It was my father’s birthday today,” she said. 

They fell in to easy conversation as she talked about her father, Andre Bourgeois, the former governor of Nassau, and how her life choices had put them forever at odds. 

“Gabriel Agreste,” Luka said ponderously. “So you answer to him, then.”

“It’s his fleet, but make no mistake, the _Queen Wasp_  is my ship to command as I please.”

“I don’t doubt it. But I wonder—how does the daughter of a former governor end up cavorting with tars and ruffians?”

“How indeed.”

She let him chew on that, but he merely watched her, as if the mystery itself was sweetest. 

“And you? What’s your sad story?” Chloe asked. 

“Why would you think my story’s sad?”

“With a voice that could charm a heart of stone, your story could be nothing but tragic.”

He smiled, revealing a flash of straight, pearly teeth. “You flatter me. I can carry a tune, but I’ve only ever charmed drunks and slatterns. Easy targets.”

Pretty and modest. Chloe didn’t buy his act for a second. 

“And me?” she asked. “Am I your latest target?”

“I should be asking you the same question.”

This drew a laugh from her. “You’re entertaining, I’ll say that much. But you can take your sad songs elsewhere, I’m not interested tonight.”

She reached for her cup to take a drink, but his fingers on her wrist stilled her. Taken aback, she stared at his long fingers curled around her wrist. They were cold to the touch, but not unpleasant. 

“Perhaps I could interest you in a different tune,” he said. 

Chloe was starting to grow annoyed. Perhaps she’d been correct in her original snap judgment of him. The truly determined might benefit from a long game. All she knew was that she did not have the time or energy to wait it out. She tried to retract her hand, but he held fast and leaned closer. 

She would have snapped at him, too, if not for the next words that came out of his mouth. 

“Have you ever heard of the lost treasure of _León_?”

* * *

 

The sapphire sea drank the noontime sunlight, draining the sky of its most potent hues. The chop was light and gently rocked a lonely dinghy and its lonelier passenger. Adrien Agreste saw blue as far as the eye could see, as above so below. In between he was captain of a crew-less barge charting the divide in between, miles behind and miles yet to go, and never a mile closer to either side. 

The sun bleached his hair and salt stained his tired fingers. He had been adrift all morning in the distant shadow of his father’s ship, the _Hawk Moth_. All he had to keep him company was an ivory flute, well-used, and no one to hear him play. He tried to ignore the sun’s oppressive swelter, the heat on his neck, and the eyes on his back, watching and waiting.

Adrien raised the flute to his lips, patient fingers fluttering, and played. Sea and sky swallowed his song and swept it away. Anyone passing by may have wondered at the golden youth—lost at sea was no place for pretty faces and sad songs, and all who drifted here drifted alone. 

Alone, but for the eyes that watched him. 

Alone, but for shadows beneath him. 

Alone…

He snapped his eyes open and ceased his playing. Above, the sky was ever clear and bright, and below the sea plunged deep and blue. Empty and endless, as above so below, a man adrift in the doldrums between, reaching for the unreachable. Until something reached back. 

Adrien stared, his lips limp where they’d kissed the flute. A woman stared back. She rose from the waves, her dark hair glistening with sunlight and blue eyes that put the sea to shame. The waves raised her higher, revealing a slender neck and shoulders shimmering with sea-blind. Spellbound, Adrien lowered his flute. She came closer. 

“Oh,” was all he could say. Exhausted, sun-sick, and sea-weary, he had imagined a sight like this a hundred times before. And yet, none felt so vivid, so wholly entrancing as this. 

She did not speak, not even as she draped her arms over the edge of his boat, long-clawed fingers finding his flute and caressing it, almost reverent. Expressive, blue eyes questioned the words she did not, or could not, say. 

“My song,” he said, dream-like. 

She watched him from the edge, and the waves beat them together, miles and miles and nowhere at all, nowhere to go in between, but he could not look away. Somewhere, buried deep, a part of him that was not beguiled warned that this was no sweet mirage, and she no willing maid. But it was becoming harder to hear that drowning voice. He would have much rather heard hers. 

“Can you speak?” he asked, clenching his hands over the side of the boat. 

She pulled away before he could touch her, dark hair pooling about her shoulders like a great spill of ink. She opened her mouth, but closed it once more, silent. Adrien was filled with a great and sudden sadness at the loss of her. 

“Can you understand me?” He leaned over the edge, heart pounding, desperate to know. 

Slowly, she came closer and slipped a hand over the edge, curling and curious. Inch by careful inch, the divide narrowed. Adrien sat rigid and still as she brushed her taloned fingers delicately over his blond stubble to trace his jaw. She smiled, and it was his undoing. 

He tasted salt on her lips as they closed around his, at once quiet and chaste, yet demanding, insatiable. Lovers and poets describe a truly moving kiss as breathtaking, but they had never kissed an honest mermaid and lived to tell the tale. She stole his breath, his sanity, and kept a sliver of it for herself.

“Yes,” she breathed back into him. 

Adrien felt heavy, as if his limbs had turned to stone, and yet even now he could not avert his gaze. A shout sounded somewhere far, far away, and the waves broke around them. Sunlight glinted off a harpoon fired too close, and the mermaid screamed. She flailed back into the waves, and stupefied, Adrien was too slow to react when his boat was forcefully flipped. He didn’t even realize he’d hit the water until he swallowed a mouthful of seawater instead of air and gagged. In a panic, he could not discern up from down, and he clawed at his watery prison desperately. 

Opening his eyes to the searing salt sea, he glimpsed the form of the creature he’d been sent to hunt day in, day out. Her mouth opened in an anguished scream he felt as surely as the tide as she clutched her arm where the harpoon had cut her. Her powerful tail, red as a summer sunrise, matched the pulsing ruby at her throat and her blood in the water. She saw him there, submerged in a world that did not want him, and bared her fangs in a fury. She lunged. 

But she never reached him before a net descended upon them both. Trapped, she writhed in a rising panic. Sharp claws scraped, but they did not free her. They wouldn’t, no matter how much she struggled. Adrien himself had overseen the reinforced net’s construction and knew what she would soon know, too. 

Together, they were dragged back to the surface and out of the water. Adrien gagged and sputtered, his fingers grasping for purchase in the netting, and soon he was on his back looking up at the faces of his fellow crewmen. They watched, too afraid to free Adrien, lest they free the creature he’d dragged back with him. He tried to sit up, but something cold and wet snaked around his body and anchored him. Sharp nails raked the bare skin of his neck, insistent, and a red-scaled tail twisted around his leg. Adrien sucked in a terrified breath and forced himself not to struggle in her hold, lest she tear him open with a flick of her powerful wrist. 

There was a commotion among the crew, and the men parted for a Goliath of a man, broad and barrel-chested. The Gorilla, as the _Hawk Moth_ ’s taciturn boatswain was known to the crew, frowned deeply and reached for the netting. The mermaid hissed and sank her nails into Adrien’s neck, drawing blood. Everyone froze. 

“Adrien!” shouted Nino Lahiffe, one of the freedmen working off their blood debt as deckhands. He held a harpoon and lingered within striking distance of the mermaid, genuine concern in his honey eyes.

Adrien gritted his teeth. He felt the mermaid’s rope-like hair draped over his shoulder, her cold cheek pressed to his temple. “Please…”

The Gorilla looked ready to take his chances and rip the mermaid off Adrien, but she suddenly tensed and shrieked in pain. Her grip on Adrien loosened, and the Gorilla immediately reached for him. In a matter of moments, Adrien was free of the net and the mermaid’s clutches with only a few bloody scrapes down his neck. Nino took him by the arm as the Gorilla all but tossed Adrien aside. 

A sword had pierced the mermaid’s tail fin, and her blood pooled on the deck. The ship’s willowy quartermaster, Armand D’Argencourt, looked down on her dispassionately over the hilt of his cutlass. 

“That’s quite enough of that,” said a quietly booming voice. 

Heavy boots descended on the deck, and the rest of the crew scrambled out of the way, not wanting to be caught gawking vapidly instead of working. Captain Gabriel Agreste was severe and imposing in his black and violet captain’s mantle, a long cutlass secured at his hip, and two pistols strapped snugly across his chest. Armand withdrew his sword as quietly as he had deployed it and stepped aside for his captain. 

Icy blue eyes cast upon the trapped mermaid, as if it took an effort merely to look upon her. “To fall for a fair face and a melancholy song. Even a mermaid is just a woman in the end.”

She bared her small fangs at him. “I do not _fall_.”

A few of the crewmen recoiled and whispered prayers to themselves. Gabriel glowered at the mermaid, unblinking. 

“You speak,” he said, an edge to his voice. And then he turned his harsh eyes on Adrien, understanding. “You _fool_.” 

Adrien had no explanation for him. Of course he knew the stories, the warnings. They said a mermaid’s kiss steals a piece of a man’s soul. What was a soul if not words to give it shape and meaning? Mermaids presented as lovely women, but they were not women at all. Flesh-eaters, predators, they hunted men across the seven seas with tooth and nail and a drowning kiss. Some, it was said, even sang to their prey. A siren’s song was said to drive a man mad, but this mermaid had not sung to Adrien. Perhaps she had seen no need, as he so willingly—so _foolishly_ given her his words and his trust, if only for a moment. 

“Put her in the basin,” Gabriel ordered. “Before she dries out completely. She’s no use to me dead.”

The mermaid lashed about with her scarlet tail, pure muscle and fury, and it was all the Gorilla could do to keep her netted. The sun was searing bright, and Adrien’s skin was already dry and itching after his near drowning. The mermaid, too, was drying out, her skin beginning to smoke. 

And then, the strangest thing happened. She writhed and struggled, her tail flailing and shedding scarlet scales that shriveled and disintegrated to salt as they fell from her. Her taloned nails shrank, her fangs receded, and long legs, new and unpracticed, knocked at the knees as she struggled in her mounting panic and fright. In a matter of moments, the sun’s rays evaporated the mermaid’s magic and left only a young girl caught in the net, doe-eyed and afraid under the crew’s leering stares. 

Nino released Adrien in a shock and muttered something in a language Adrien did not understand, but he recognized a hasty prayer when he heard it. Armand had his rapier drawn again, shadow-ringed eyes narrowed and suspicious as he brandished it at the mermaid-turned-woman shaking and nude on the deck. 

“What magic is this?” Gabriel said, an edge of uncertainty in his voice that had not been there before. 

The mermaid clutched at her long hair and tried to curl her legs under herself as if to shrink. Her inhuman strength was gone along with her scales and fangs. All that remained of her halfling state was the uncut ruby at her throat, blood red and winking in the sunlight. 

“Mermaids do not have the power to walk among us,” Gabriel said, more to himself than to the mermaid. “How is this possible?”

But the mermaid only glared up at him, defiant even in her fear. It seemed she was done speaking. Small and shaking and bleeding from her wounds, she made a pitiable sight. 

“Gorilla,” Gabriel said. “Bring her. It appears the basin won’t be necessary, nor the net. She’s just a woman now.”

The Gorilla grunted, threw the net off the mermaid, and picked her up like a sack of sand before she could even think to scramble away. She beat his broad shoulders with her small fists, thrashing and snarling, but she would sooner sway stone than the Gorilla. 

Adrien went after them, but a figure moved in front of him to block his path. 

“Adrien, are you all right?”

Nathalie Sancoeur was short and slight of frame, but she commanded the crew’s respect as first mate and Gabriel’s right hand. To Adrien, however, she was not only his superior officer, but the woman who had raised him from infancy after his mother died in childbirth. Nathalie was the only mother he had ever known, and right now she wanted to know if he was all right. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” Adrien said. 

Nathalie looked him over briefly. “You nearly let that mermaid drown you.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“I never should have let him send you out there alone.”

As if she would have had any say in the matter. Once Gabriel made up his mind, there was no swaying him. No amount of pleading or reasoning or years could ever sway Gabriel Agreste, the most notorious pirate captain in the Spanish Main. Since he recruited his first crew out of Tortuga twenty years ago, his reputation and influence had only grown as he pursued a singular goal, unwavering. Now the commander of a small fleet of leal ships and with a proper mermaid under his control, that goal was not long off. 

“I volunteered,” Adrien said. “I knew the risks.”

He hadn’t truly known the risks. Very few had survived an encounter with a mermaid, and Gabriel had the journals of the few men who had. Agrestes had made something of a career out of chasing mermaids, and being chased in return. The few who had escaped with their lives recorded all they learned, every detail, in the hopes that the next generation might find a way to end the hunt once and for all. 

Now that Gabriel had a live mermaid under his control, he had come closer than any before him. These were uncharted waters, and all Adrien and the crew could do was trust—and pray—that this story would not end like all the others before it. 

The Gorilla disappeared into the small guest cabin on deck that had been outfitted to host the mermaid, and reemerged not long after hauling a long, glass basin out over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. If the mermaid had legs, she wouldn’t need to be confined to a glass coffin filled with sea water to keep her alive. Or so it appeared. 

Armand was commanding the crew to clean up the mess the mermaid had made on the deck and get back to work. Nino was among the deckhands scrambling to do as commanded, and he caught Adrien’s eye briefly as he shouldered a heavy coil of rope. Armand saw the exchange and frowned deeply. 

“I, um, I better get back to work,” Adrien said. 

“Of course.” Nathalie quickly touched the shallow scratch wounds on his neck, but her dark eyes were cloudy and gave little away. “I won’t keep you.”

Adrien cast a last glance at the mermaid’s chambers, hesitant. 

“Oi, Adrien!” shouted one of the deckhands.

“I’m coming!” He returned to his duties, and tried not to think about the strange creature he had lured with a song, and her kiss that lingered on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the support on the prologue! Here we are the real start of the fic, and as you can see, we’ll be following two separate but intertwining stories for a while. Feel free to share your thoughts and theories in the comments if you like!


	3. Just a Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Adrien would be the biggest GabeNath shipper on the planet, but he's too respectful to say shit...for now.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains mature sexual content. Please read at your own discretion. Look for the ♕ symbol to skip it if you prefer. Otherwise, enjoy sinners!

They left her in darkness that first night, the big, brutish one and the snake with the sword. The mermaid wrapped the blanket they had given her around her naked form, but not for warmth—a mermaid’s blood ran cold like the sea. But exposed and vulnerable, she had never felt so degraded in her life. 

_Just a woman_ , the tall man had said. 

She was not just a woman; she was not a woman at all, and she refused to be treated as such. 

She looked down at the pale legs she had sprouted, spindly and untested and utterly useless. What was this punishment? Had the goddess forsaken her for defying her queen and master? Would she die like this, alone in darkness and unable to reach the sea? 

She felt the overwhelming urge to weep. What a fool she had been. An arrogant, stubborn fool. She clutched the uncut ruby at her throat, but it offered her no warmth now. 

_I should never have taken it._

The door opened and admitted the tall man who may have terrified her if she was the meek woman he foolishly proclaimed her to be. But the mermaid’s eyes were dry as a bone as she met his, defiant. He let himself into her chamber, closed the door, and set down the light he’d brought on the wooden table. His icy, blue eyes glanced at the unused bed, dispassionate, and back at her. 

“How is it that you have legs, Mermaid?”

She said nothing. 

“I have ways of making you talk, but there’s no need for violence if you simply cooperate.”

Silence. 

“Do you know who I am?” 

Even in the gloom, her eyes were sharp and true. The ghost of a smile curled his thin lips. 

“My name is Gabriel Agreste.”

He paused to watch her, and try as she might, the mermaid must have given something away of her surprise as a true fear bloomed inside her at the sound of that accursed name. 

“You’ve heard of me,” Gabriel said, more observational than pleased. “Or, at least, my name.”

_Agreste._

Her mind was reeling. Of all the ships, of all the men, what cruel fate had brought her to this one? She clutched the ruby at her throat, unable to hide her fear.

“You need not fear me, Mermaid,” Gabriel said with the surety of one amused by his own lie. “You’re not the one I want.”

He produced an old journal from his coat pocket, its pages yellowed with age. It fell open to the middle, where a large, black scale rested. Gabriel picked up the scale and held it up to the moonlight. It glimmered with a bloody, crimson sheen. But more than its shape and color, the mermaid recognized the power it emanated, as alive and real as the one from whom it had fallen. 

She lunged with all her might, lashed out with her inadequate human claws, bared her flat human teeth, spitting and hissing as she yearned to taste Gabriel’s blood on her tongue. He moved quickly out of reach, and her useless legs and the chain that bound her both betrayed her. She crumpled to the floor, unable to reach him.

“Then we understand each other,” Gabriel said. He rubbed his thumb over the stolen scale with a kind of lewd tenderness. “Your life for the merling queen’s.”

“I will _never_ betray my queen.”

Gabriel seemed taken aback at her decision to speak. He pocketed the ancient scale and rose until he loomed over her. “You already have. You’re here, after all.”

She tried to lash out at him again, but he was beyond her reach. This body was weak and clumsy, and it betrayed her at every turn. She pulled on her chain until her ankle was raw, grasping for him, but he was already gone.

Alone in her prison once more, she let out a strangled scream and dug her fingers into her hair for something to rip. But her anger didn’t last against the mounting dread and despair closing in all around her.

_What have I done?_

She gathered her useless legs to her chest and hung her head, but she didn’t shed a single tear.

* * *

 

Chloe woke to yet another dazzling, blue morning on the open ocean. The trade winds favored her, the _Queen Wasp'_ s sails heavy with the sea breeze. She checked her heading, one hand on the wheel, and smiled. There was nothing like this: open ocean for miles, the _Queen Wasp_ 's full might at her fingertips, and best of all, the promise of a boon that would satiate even her hungriest crew members. 

That is, if the tale was true. 

Alix barked orders at the men and women of Chloe’s crew as they manned the sails, scrubbed the deck, cleaned out the cannons. It was an unspoken tradition that sailors worked best in unmixed company, but in this world traditions were made by the men who carried the sharpest swords. Chloe’s sword was the sharpest of her crew; it had earned her the captain’s mantle and the _Queen Wasp_ , as well as Gabriel Agreste’s grudging acceptance of her claimed position. In preparation for her rise to power, Chloe had scoured the brothels of Port Royal, Nassau, and Tortuga for the girls who would sooner kiss cold steel than a drunken sailor. Alix had been the first of several such recruits, and Chloe had found that the mixed company was often her best defense against restless pirates out to sea with only their right hands to keep them company on the lonely nights. 

Among the crew was a certain silver-tongued singer earning his back-breaking keep the same as the rest. Chloe cast him a glance as he worked on the rigging, leathers good and salted, shirt rolled up over his elbows and exposing his too-soft hands to the sun and sea breeze. She hadn’t thought he’d be able to manage, but he uttered not one word of complaint and worked hard. 

Considering the alternative involving the sharp end of her sword, perhaps his compliance was not so surprising. 

“Captain,” said the barrel-chested boatswain as he lumbered over. 

Chloe cast him a glance askance. “Kim. Something the matter?”

She didn’t miss the way his dark eyes lingered on her figure beneath her black and yellow captain’s mantle. 

“Not as such, just the usual,” Kim said.

Chloe put a hand on her hip, revealing the pistol she carried on her person at all times. “And as usual, I’ve been over this with you. The crew voted and agreed with my proposal. I don’t like being questioned at every turn.”

Kim nodded and took a step closer. “I’m only saying the crew’s getting restless. The open blue makes a man ponder is all.”

Chloe knew exactly what her crew was pondering. “I’ve secured Luka’s agreement to furnish us with a heading. I’ve put him to work on his word that the _León_ will be where he claims, and if it’s not, Davy Jones will have a singer to entertain him in the Locker.” She shot Kim a scathing glare, and he flinched. “I’ve done my job. Now get off your ass and do yours.”

Kim flushed and clenched his fists. He was a big man, all muscle and meat, but of all her crewmen, Kim worried her the least. Like Alix, he had been with Chloe before when she was still a deckhand on the _Hawk Moth_ , had helped her take this very ship. He’d given her his loyalty, his trust, and his body to warm her bed on occasion when she longed to wrap her hands around something other than the hilt of a sword. It was not like him to doubt her.

“I just don’t see why you can’t force him to give up the heading now. He’s just another mouth to feed. The sooner we’re rid of him, the better.”

“We lost seven crewmen in the last raid. I should think you’d welcome the extra pair of hands.”

“Why do you defend him?”

Chloe almost laughed in his face. It was so childish, so _weak_ , so unlike him. But he was a man, after all, and Luka was unknown to him. She chided herself on not realizing it sooner.

“Are you jealous?”

Kim flushed harder and took a step closer to her. “I’m only saying I don’t trust him.”

She’d not taken Kim to bed in nearly two months since the failed raids that had landed her sorry and stewing back in her father’s city. When she’d begun their occasional trysts, it was with the clear understanding that he was serving a base purpose, and she was still his captain first and foremost. She’d thought he understood. More fool her for putting too much faith in him. 

“Luka stays. Fate will determine for how long,” she said.

Kim reached for her hand. “Chloe, please, I’m only—”

“That’s ‘Captain’ to you.” Chloe pulled her hand away. “I suggest you don’t forget that, sailor.”

He stalked off to get back to work, leaving Chloe in a mood that spoiled an otherwise perfectly good morning. She flipped her ponytail, a sour frown on her face, and cast about the deck. Her crew was working hard, the promise of gold highly motivating. But despite his childish whining, Kim did have a point about the general morale. With every passing day, the pressure only mounted. If they arrived at the alleged site of the sunken Spanish galleon and found it bare, Chloe was certain Luka would not be the only one visiting the Locker.

He looked up from his rope work then and caught her watching him. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. He held her gaze a moment, and even in the glaring light of day, his silver-grey eyes seemed to glow, mirror-bright. He smiled strangely, and Chloe suddenly did not like that look on him, like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Another crewman called to him, and he caught a bundle of netting. He got back to work, and Chloe was left standing there, wondering why she was suddenly cold. 

That night, she was in her spacious quarters surrounded by muted lamplight as she studied a large, nautical map that spilled over the edges of her wide desk. If the winds favored her as they had thus far, she guessed the _Queen Wasp_ would reach the coast of Cartagena in a week’s time. Longer if they lost the winds. 

She tapped the map, her fingers drumming on the hard wood beneath, and glanced at the single, gold coin winking in the candle light. It was a Spanish escudo, printed with the face of some crusty old king, and it was the only evidence she had that she was not leading her crew on a fool’s errand. 

Luka had been to the wreck, to hear him tell it. Shipwrecked himself, he and a few survivors happened upon the remains of the _León_ by pure, dumb luck, and he’d retrieved this coin as proof of his story. He’d made his way north in search of a ship willing to make the journey to recover the rest of the lost treasure. 

_“What about the others who survived with you?”_ she’d questioned him. 

_“They didn’t make it.”_

Chloe found it difficult to believe that the soft-handed singer could be as ruthless as any true pirate, but often the most dangerous men (and women) were the ones no one expected. He hadn’t elaborated, and Chloe knew he was keeping things, but it wouldn’t matter if the tale proved true in the end. 

There was a knock on the door, and Luka let himself in. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

“Yes. Have a seat.”

They sat opposite each other across Chloe’s desk. His eyes alighted on the golden escudo he’d handed over, then flickered back to her. Out of her heavy captain’s mantle, she was comfortable in practical men’s clothing. Her pistol sat in plain sight on her desk, and her cutlass hung at her hip in its scabbard. 

“The _León_ ,” Chloe began. “Do you know why it sank?”

“Why does any ship sink?”

“Usually because of people like me. But not the _León_. The last communication the crew had with the outside world was to report that they had departed from Campeche without problems. Everything was as it should have been.”

“Perhaps they encountered a storm.”

Chloe shook her head again. “I checked. In the months surrounding its disappearance, there was no record of any tropical storms in the waters off Cartagena, where you claim the _León_ went down.”

“Bad luck then. It was the same for the ship I was on.”

She studied him. A crew’s work was not easy, Chloe knew that as well as anyone. But Luka seemed suited to it, to the sun and salt and sea. Some nights, he would entertain the crew with a song, and on those nights it seemed as if the sea sang with him. Aside from Kim, most of the crew seemed to accept him well enough. Some people had an affinity for capturing hearts without the need to prove themselves at every turn. Should this venture prove fruitful, there was no doubt in Chloe’s mind that he would become one of the most well-loved of her crew.

“They say those waters are the hunting grounds of sea monsters,” Chloe said.

He laughed lightly. “You believe in sea monsters?”

“I believe in the perceptions of men. There’s no stronger power than the convictions of the faithful.”

“Or the fearful.”

She smiled wryly. “True enough.”

“Is that why you wanted to see me?” Luka asked, splaying in his chair to get comfortable. “To talk about sea monsters?”

She studied him, the easy manner with which he carried himself in her presence, on her ship. “I’m curious. For a man a step away from the gallows, you seem quite comfortable.”

“You run a comfortable ship compared to most.”

Chloe wasn’t sure why it bothered her, but she could not shake the feeling that he was keeping something from her. Normally, she didn’t pry into the private lives of her crew. All that mattered was loyalty, and as long as she had that, she could not care less how they spent their time or their earnings. But with Luka, she felt a knife needling her gut every time their gazes met. 

“And how does a tavern singer manage to find comfort in the company of pirates?”

He smiled, his strange eyes half-lidded. “You tell me.”

Chloe hadn’t realized she was leaning over the desk toward him, like some starry-eyed waif hanging on his every word. She was so shocked at her own lack of propriety, however real or imagined, that she physically recoiled and pressed her back into her chair harder than was absolutely necessary. What was wrong with her? Maybe she should not have been so short with Kim. A visit from him may be just what she needed to clear her head of the haze that seemed to follow Luka around. 

That very haze was making it hard to breathe around him now that he was looking at her like he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. Like he’d been expecting it. When he moved, it was like sighting a shark silhouetted in the deep, a shadowy figure materializing out of the blue from parts unknown, unseen until it was right on top of her with nowhere to run. Sizing her up.

Circling.

He reached for her pistol, gently taking it in his hands as he ran his fingers over the mother-of-pearl handle, caressing. There was something indescribably lewd about the way he handled such a deadly weapon in front of her. He looked up at her over the handle. 

“I’ve always admired how closely intertwined elegance and death can be,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why.”

“Why what?” Chloe croaked. Her fingers were beginning to ache for how tightly she was clutching the arms of her chair. 

“Why I’m comfortable in your company.” He gently lay the pistol back down.

Circling…

Chloe swallowed hard. “I have work to do. You can leave now.”

“As you wish.” He rose out of the chair and nodded deferentially. “Majesty.”

Chloe called Kim to her quarters not long after, but as soon as they finished and she sent him on his way, the haze returned. She was visited by dreams of an ocean deep and all the red, red ruin it swallowed whole.

* * *

 

Adrien swallowed some cooked fish and gruel for his dinner as he sat with Nino in a quiet corner. 

“I don’t like it,” Nino said grimly, sucking grease from his fingers. “Bad enough Cap’n sent us lookin’ for merlings, but this one’s a shapeshifter. It’s black magic, I say. No good’ll come of it.”

“I don’t know about black magic,” Adrien said. They were just legs. If anything, the mermaid in human form was less dangerous. 

“She may look like a beautiful woman, but don’t forget what she is, where she comes from.” Nino shook his head, deeply troubled. “No good’ll come of this, you wait and see.”

Nino was of an age with Adrien and had been a member of Gabriel’s crew since Gabriel paid the debt Nino’s mother owed to a plantation owner on Saint Dominique. She had joined the _Hawk Moth_ as a cook and a storyteller, her tales about local legends, myths, and forgotten lore of keen interest to a man looking to catch a living mermaid. Nino inherited her stories and superstitions, and he kept them close at heart as he learned the life of a sailor with dreams of one day captaining his own ship. 

“Some good _will_ come of it,” Adrien said. “Or else, everything we’ve done for the last twenty years’ll mean nothing.”

“You mean, everything your father has done.”

Adrien was already a daily topic of gossip and suspicion being the captain’s son and heir, and yet with no ship of his own to command. It wasn’t his age or a lack of ability—others, women even, had earned the right to sail under Gabriel Agreste. He did not belabor the point, if for no other reason than not to draw attention to themselves. There was work yet to be done, as always—Nino to the sails and Adrien to the sword with Armand, better known to the crew as the Darkblade. His cutlass was made of a strange, dark ore that appeared black even in sunlight. Some of the more superstitious among the crew claimed the blade drank the blood of those who crossed him, thus corrupting the bright steel. 

When it was well past dark, Adrien went to see his father. Gabriel was hunched over a strange array of nautical maps and charts, and a leather-bound journal sat open to a page filled with notes in a nigh illegible script. Gabriel removed his reading spectacles when Adrien entered.

“You did well today, all things considered,” he said coldly. 

Adrien smiled. Everything about his father was cold. He had learned long ago not to take it personally. Gabriel had suffered in ways most men, if they were lucky, never would. 

“I promised I wouldn’t fail you, Father.”

“But you nearly did.” Gabriel looked up at him, arms spread wide as he pored over the charts on his desk. “That creature would have killed you if Nino had not harpooned her ahead of my orders.”

Adrien frowned—not because his friend had very likely saved his life, but because he’d kept it to himself. And the girl—mermaid—could have died. But Gabriel was right, she was not human. Not a girl, not a woman, but a creature of the deep. A fish wife, doomed to wander in between worlds, never welcome in either. Bitter and ostracized, it was no wonder her kind cursed humans, as Adrien’s family had been cursed generations ago. 

“What will you do with her?” Adrien asked. 

“See for yourself.” Gabriel passed him the journal he’d been examining as he charted a new heading. 

Adrien thumbed through the pages and tried to decipher the scrawling script. There was a crude sketch of a woman with a fish tail, and the waves parting before her. 

“And the waves would calm for the siren’s song,” Adrien read. “What does it mean?”

“It means we have the final piece of the puzzle, at last.” Gabriel picked up the dagger on his desk and stabbed it over the map. “The merling kingdom awaits.”

“But I thought you didn’t know the way. No one’s ever found it.”

“The way is known. You can thank your thrice great uncle Martin for that. It’s the location itself that remains hidden.” There was a glimmer in Gabriel’s eyes that was not often seen. “Except to a mermaid’s plea.”

“You think… If she sings, that will open the way?”

“No one has ever tried it. Mermaids desiccate out of the water, making it nearly impossible to take them alive. I was prepared to take every precaution, but happily, it seems that won’t be necessary.”

Gabriel was almost smiling at this point, a rare sight if ever there was one. Adrien had scarcely seen his father in a better mood. 

“Then…it was worth the risk,” Adrien said. “To catch her.”

“It was.” He looked at Adrien, almost thoughtful. “I promised you long ago that I would never let my curse pass to you. I’ve never been closer than I am now to keeping that promise. Your poor mother will finally rest easy.”

A portrait of Emilie hung on the wall. She was as golden as the sun with eyes like the sea after a terrible storm. Adrien was her spitting image. Very little of his father had borne out in him. From her perch behind Gabriel’s desk, she watched them, ever present, ever waiting.

“Yes, Father.”

Nathalie appeared not long after. Adrien showed himself out, but Gabriel called to him one final time. 

“Adrien, one more thing.” Gabriel’s icy blue eyes bored into him, almost clairvoyant in their clarity. “When you see the mermaid…”

Adrien flushed. “I wasn’t, I mean, I didn’t plan to—”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I have no intention of stopping you.” He glanced at Nathalie briefly. “You have a gentle heart, even for an abominable creature such as that.”

Adrien said nothing to that. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the mermaid since they’d brought her on board. He was curious about her, why she had spared him, why she had kissed him…

“Do not tell her your lineage. You are merely a crewman, nothing more, nothing less.”

Adrien considered this. It was not an odd request considering what he knew about his family’s history with the merlings and their curse.

“As you wish, Father.”

Adrien left Nathalie and Gabriel alone. The crew whispered among themselves about the relationship between their captain and his first mate, but Adrien knew they were naught but whispers. Gabriel Agreste had lost the woman he loved to a curse as old as time; he would never allow himself to love another only to lose her, too, no matter how much he might want to.

Most of the crew was belowdecks for the night, where they would throw dice or pass stories and rum, while a few unfortunate souls sat the dead man’s watch. Among them was the Gorilla, who hardly slept at all in all the years Adrien had known him. He perched at the stern, dark eyes hooded and unblinking as he stared out to sea. Armand was at the helm, equally dead-eyed and entranced in his given task, unquestioning. 

_Akumas_ , the crew called them. Though never within hearing. 

It was not spoken of. 

Adrien paused when he passed the mermaid’s quarters. Since she’d been thrown in there, there’d been not a peep from her. Gabriel had visited her once when she was first confined, and the Gorilla several times thereafter, but there was no other sign that anyone even occupied those quarters. Adrien wasn’t sure what he’d expected—screaming? Pleading? Perhaps a fight? Her silence and quiescence were strange. Disturbing, even. What would a mythical creature enslaved by those she would call prey be feeling now? 

Adrien did not realize what he was doing until he was already at her door, surprised to find it unlocked. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he slipped inside. Moonlight filtered through the window, milky bright, and illuminated a narrow bed against the wall, a single chair, and an old desk with an oil lamp, extinguished. There was a ceramic latrine in the corner, as well as a small basin filled with sea water. 

The mermaid was shackled to the wall, and she sat huddled on the floor draped in a thin blanket. Chained like an animal, she nonetheless met his eyes without fear or shame. For the longest time, Adrien and the mermaid watched each other, as if this could not be real, as if they could not possibly be here like this. He was shamed just to look upon her reduced to this feeble shadow of herself.

“I…” he began, but soon realized he had nothing to say to her. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. Trapped and enslaved for a purpose that had nothing to do with her, the least she deserved was space free from invasion by man. 

“I’m sorry,” he said at length, the weight of it bearing him down and no less heavy now that he’d uttered the words. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”

She said nothing for the longest time, and he figured there was no reason to expect otherwise. He rubbed his mouth and frowned at the sour taste on his tongue.

“You called to me,” she said.

Adrien looked at her, those luminous blue eyes so alive in the moonlight, baffled. Yes, he had called to her, but not to _her_. In truth, he’d doubted his father’s scheme would truly work. Everywhere in the world they said that the only thing mermaids loved more than a pretty face was a pretty song. Nino liked to say that when they devoured a man’s flesh, they would devour his voice, too, and there was little the merfolk valued more than music. 

But then, Adrien remembered she had devoured his voice, after all. “You can speak, like me. How?”

She only glared at him. The sea and all its monsters had no mercy for gentle hearts.

“I’m Adrien,” he said, taking a tentative step toward her. He was careful not to give his family name, remembering his father’s sole request. “My mother gave me my name.” He wasn’t sure why he said that, but it was true, and something told him truth was the only thing that might work with this woman—mermaid.

_She’s not human, she’s a mermaid._

But looking at her now, she didn’t look like the siren that lured sailors to their doom to feast upon their flesh. She just looked like a scared young woman out of her depth who never asked for any of this. 

“It means ‘of the sea’ in my language.” He smiled sadly. “I think she must have loved the sea so much to name me after it. I think that’s why she loved my father, too. He’s lived his whole life at sea. I guess I have, too, thinking about it.”

He was rambling, and she was still watching him as if she didn’t understand why he was still here. 

“Sorry…what about you? Do you have a name?”

Once again, she remained silent as she watched him and he watched her, and he was struck suddenly by how beautiful she was. Not bewitching as before, when she had been submerged in the sea and terrifying in her beauty, but still quite fair, familiarly so—although, her narrowed eyes and heart-shaped face did not resemble anyone he was used to seeing in this part of the world. He licked his lips, remembering her kiss. She’d tasted like moonlight—sweet and so very, very cold. 

“Right, well…” He wrung his hands. “I know you have no reason to trust my word, but all the same, you should know that your life is not in danger. The captain will let you go soon enough.”

Silence. 

“I’ll just… I’ll go.”

“Marinette,” she said.

Adrien’s hand froze on the door handle. Slowly, he looked back at her. “Marinette?”

“My name.” She was so tense, she may have snapped in half under a light breeze. “My name is Marinette.”

* * *

 

The couple minutes of waiting for Kim to return to the surface were the longest of Chloe’s life. Once they’d lain anchor and managed to locate a wreckage around the location Luka indicated, the tension among the crew was palpable enough to cut with a knife. There was no telling if it was the lost _León_ or just another nameless slave trade vessel without taking a closer look. And sunk to nearly fifteen meters, it would prove perilous just to determine that much. The water-rotted bones of dead slaves and their captors would fetch a higher price among the fishes than at any port. Chloe swallowed hard and tugged at the collar of her captain’s mantle, feeling it tighten around her like a noose as she waited. 

Alix looked mean with a dagger drawn as she stood with Luka, prepared to cut him down to appease the angry crew should this entire errand prove a sham. Chloe did her best not to look at him. If this venture went south, Alix would have to cut her down after him. 

Finally, Kim’s dark mop broke the surface, and the couple crewman in the dinghy next to the _Queen Wasp_  reached to help him climb aboard. Everyone leaned over the edge of the railing to watch him, and Chloe held her breath. Shaking his hair out, Kim looked up at his crew and captain, his expression unreadable. 

“Well?” Chloe said. _Will I die today or not?_

He blinked up at her and broke into a stupid grin. From his pocket, he produced a flash of gold. “We’re all going to be filthy rich!”

Chloe barely heard the thunderous roar of the crew’s cheers over her own pounding heart. She gripped the railing with one hand, her cutlass with the other, and tasted the air she breathed for the first time in months. The lost treasure of the _León_ , a vanished Spanish galleon no one had ever been able to find, was hers. She turned, saw that some of the crew had picked up Luka and paraded him around, clapping him on the back and declaring that they were all going to live like kings from this day forth. Alix quickly whipped them all back into line, and soon they scuttled like ants to lower nets and people into more dinghies to begin the slow and arduous process of removing the sunken treasure. 

In her shock and awe, Chloe locked eyes with Luka over the heads of the crew. He smiled, and it was all she could do not to crumble right there. 

* * *

 

It would take four full days for the crew of the _Queen Wasp_  to haul heavy chests laden with Spanish gold out of the broken carcass of the _León_. A rip tide swept in during the afternoon of that first day, and two crewmen drowned before they realized the danger. The strange current changed course almost as quickly as it had come, and soon the pirates were back to their plundering. They drank to their lost comrades, prayed for Davy Jones to welcome them into his drowned court, and moved on. 

The _León_ ’s hull was peppered with holes, violently ripped open like burst pox boils. Some speculated cannon fire had been her undoing, but the holes were far too clean to be caused by cannons. It was a mystery no one seemed keen on solving given the bountiful plunder her sinking provided. It was a time for celebration, and Chloe was not one to deny her hardworking crew their first night as wealthy men and women. A few broke out a flute and a pair of sheepskin drums to set a tune for dancing. Rum and ale casks were cracked open, laughter filled the dark ocean night, and more than a few bastards were conceived as the buccaneers danced their partners into bed. 

Chloe sipped rum and laughed at a bawdy joke here and there, but she kept her distance from the main entertainment, preferring to let her crew celebrate without looking over their shoulder for their captain’s judgment. Beyond the dancers and merrymakers, Chloe was drawn from her passing conversation with a deck hand by the feel of a cold weight on her. 

Across the deck, Luka watched her with moon-bright eyes. Surrounded by the merry crew, nonetheless he existed apart from them, as if the world ended with him and everyone and everything else was lost to the surrounding darkness. 

Kim asked Chloe for a dance then, but she declined, saying she wished to retire early. She chanced another look across the deck and bit down on her tongue. Luka was still watching her. 

“Oi! A toast to our beautiful captain, you salty curs!” shouted one of the crewmen. “To our queen! By her hand, we’re each us a golden king tonight!”

“Here, here!”

Chloe grinned and curtseyed like the proper lady she wasn’t, drawing ribald laughter and more drinking in her honor. By the time she slipped away from the heart of the commotion, there was no sign of Luka. She got a sudden chill and fiddled with her bangs.

Discarding her drink, she retreated to her private quarters, darting glances over her shoulder and half expecting him to emerge from the shadows like some crepuscular hunter. But there was no one there, and she wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. She reached for the door to her quarters. 

Cool fingers closed over hers and the knob suddenly, and Chloe shot back in alarm only to hit a wall behind her. The wall pressed back against her, and warm breath tickled the nape of her neck. 

“Turning in for the night?” Luka hummed against the shell of her ear. 

Chloe bit back a whimper, at once appalled by her own lack of self-control and tantalized like she had never felt before at the tremor up her spine his voice inspired. “I was tired.” 

She felt him smile as his other hand snaked around her waist and wandered boldly low. “Allow me, Majesty.”

♕

When he turned the knob for her, Chloe dragged him inside behind her, her decision already made. Muted firelight from candles and kerosene lamps cast them in a warm, flattering glow. Chloe dug her nails into his hair the better to drag him down for the ravenous kiss she’d been holding on to since the last time they met in this very room. He kicked the door closed behind them and immediately went for the buckle securing her cutlass and pistol. They were a hasty tangle of fingers and lips as they tore at each other’s clothes. Even on such a warm night, he was cool to the touch, a balm to her feverish desire, but it only drove her madder. 

He took her by the thighs, hoisted her over his waist, and walked them not to the corner bed as she’d anticipated, but to her wide desk still littered with maps of the five oceans. 

Looking up at him, her hair loose and splayed across the Atlantic, Chloe felt those proverbial waters churning beneath her, as if dragging her down into their unknowable depths. But Luka’s hands around her hips pulled her back over the edge of the world. His lips were cool against her inner thigh, wandering with purpose, achingly slow. She looked down at him, her body shaking with anticipation. 

He was watching her, those quiet bedroom eyes a chilling silver in the lamp light. One hand supported her knee over his shoulder, the other plunged into the Pacific at her hip. As soon as they locked eyes, he smirked, a promising flash of teeth as if he meant to take a bite out of her.

Chloe cried out when his tongue caressed her, and she covered her mouth to stifle herself. His teeth gently pulled at her clit, as much a threat as a promise of her slow destruction, and it was all she could do not to lose her mind as he devoured the deepest part of her. Upside-down looking at the stars through the window, she imagined falling into them, dragging Luka with her, lost in a black sea with only each other to anchor.

She dragged her fingers through his hair and pulled him deeper, wanting more, writhing when he slipped a finger inside her. It was too much, too deep, and she whimpered, completely at his mercy as he kissed her into oblivion.

Luka leaned over her and sank his palm, slick with her essence, into the distant seas of the Orient. “I want to hear you sing,” he hissed against her neck. 

He entered her in one torrential thrust, and Chloe did sing. She threw her arms around his shoulders, and he ravaged her with a crushing kiss that stole her voice. Starry-eyed and shivering, she held on tight as what was left of her washed away in a slow, violent ebbing. 

♕

* * *

 

Luka was staring out the open window to sea when Chloe stirred. The sky was still dark in the wee hours, but the music and dancing had long since quieted. She watched him watching the lonely sea, wistful, longing. She pulled the sheets around herself and sat up in bed. 

“Thinking of jumping ship?” she asked. 

“Why did you choose this life?”

She hadn’t expected such a personal question and normally would not have entertained such. But cast in the shroud of night with only the moon and stars to overhear, it felt like they were the only two people for leagues, in all the world, even. “To be free.”

He smiled, melancholy. “Freedom… Is that the promise of a life at sea?”

“There are no promises, only choices.”

He turned to look at her. “What if there’s no choice?”

Swathed in shadows, Luka appeared to her a shadow himself, silhouetted in moonbeams and like to disappear come the dawn. Chloe clutched the sheet tighter around her body and got out of bed. “There’s always a choice.”

She touched his lips lightly, half expecting him to vanish under her touch like fog. He took her wrist and kissed her palm. 

“I envy you,” he confessed.

Chloe did not understand this melancholy that clung to him like the hands of a drowning man, but she wanted nothing more in that moment than to drag him from it. “Come and envy me some more, sailor.”

The sheet pooled at her feet, and moonlight kissed her naked skin. Luka took her in his arms, and together they fell back amongst the sheets and shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Are Our Poor, Dumb Blonds Getting Themselves In To This Time, aka the alternate working title of this fic.


	4. Don't Think Twice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid any confusion, the first part of this fic is more focused on Chloe’s and Luka’s stories. Adrien’s and Marinette’s stories (and Gabriel and Nathalie) will become more of a focus a bit later in the fic as the storylines converge and we get deeper into the tension of the main plot. So I do apologize to the Adrinette and GabeNath shippers who aren’t getting as much content in these early chapters while the work is incomplete. This fic is going to be kind of short by my standards, so I can promise that we’ll get to those parts very soon!
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains mature sexual content. Please read at your own discretion. Look for the ♕ symbol to skip it if you prefer. Otherwise, enjoy sinners!

The waters of Cartagena dwindled behind the _Queen Wasp_  as she made her way back north filled to bursting with Spanish gold. 

“We’re carrying more load than a whore at high tide,” Alix said as she flipped a gold escudo through her fingers.

“I’m sure the whores will thank the men to unload it all on them,” Chloe said, eyeing the deckhands currently scrubbing the deck on their hands and knees. “Sometimes I feel like my true purpose in this life is to serve at the pleasure of all the wenches in Tortuga.”

Alix grinned salaciously. “Welcome to the Caribbean, Cap’n.”

But while her crew may serve only the men and women with whom they shared their sheets at port, Chloe had a different master, one who would be very interested in her recent plunder, and who would be expecting the proper tithe. She would have to find a way to contact the _Hawk Moth_ soon.

Nassau was never a more welcome sight than when the _Queen Wasp_  finally docked in the harbor heavy with plunder and sailors eager to put it to good use. The men descended on the local taverns and brothels with abandon. Some of Chloe’s crew had families to provide for, but most were untethered spirits living for today—pirates never knew if there would be a tomorrow. She gave the order to return at the end of the month to prepare the ship for its next voyage, by which time she hoped to have some new leads. Perhaps something bloody to slake their other appetites.

In the meantime, Chloe and a skeleton crew remained with the _Queen Wasp_  to guard her and her remaining cargo. Among those who remained was Luka, who was celebrating his belated one-month anniversary aboard the _Queen Wasp_. Given his hand in the recent successful plunder, the crew insisted on celebrating with song and drink. They invited wenches to dance, and someone had roasted a whole pig on the beach. 

_“A poor old man came riding by_  
_And we say so, and we hope so!_  
_A poor old man came riding by_  
_Oh, poor old horse.”_

The crew were merry as they sang the celebratory shanty together around the spit, Luka among them. When Alix dragged Chloe to shore to give a toast, she tried to protest discreetly. 

“I never give toasts for the first month!”

“Yes, but we’ve never had a one-monther lead us to the biggest haul of our lives,” Alix said. 

Chloe glared at her. “I’m sleeping with him. It’ll look like I’m playing favorites.”

Alix snorted. “Oh please, he’s _everybody’s_ favorite right now. Get in line!”

With little choice, Chloe soon found herself shoved onto a barrel with a tankard of ale in hand. Everyone quieted down to hear her speak. She spotted Kim flushed with drink and looking sullen, and Luka with his lyre and bedroom eyes that seemed to see right through her. She felt naked up here, exposed like she never was, and the hilt of her sword was only a meager comfort as he watched her. 

_I’m losing my goddamned mind._

She raised her tankard. “A toast, then! To Luka, for his songs and golden secrets. I expect the lot of you to serve me up a Spanish galleon or two of your own next!”

The crew erupted with laughter and cheers. Their energy was contagious, and Chloe soon found herself full with drink, good food, and merriment. It was nice to laugh and joke with her crew after so many months of dried up leads and missed opportunities. It reminded her of her early days as captain, when the world was hers for the taking and the possibilities were endless. She had come far since those days, grown and evolved for the better she liked to think, and this latest victory felt earned. 

She found Luka later refilling everyone’s tankards at a lean-to table. “Enjoying your party?”

Luka grinned. “Are you?”

Chloe shrugged. “I grow tired of all these celebrations. The men forget their discipline.”

He saw right through her and laughed. “What’s life without a little fun now and then?” He gestured at the partygoers dancing, drinking, and feasting on roast pig. “Men will follow out of fear or love. So why not make them love you?”

“Romantics don’t make for good pirates.” 

He leaned close enough to smell, and she tried to ignore the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “I’d say I’ve been doing a decent job of it so far, Majesty.”

Chloe felt his voice under her skin like a living thing, and she shivered. But he pulled away and gave her some space, content to settle back and watch the others. The light of the pit fire cast him in a warm glow and painted his silver eyes an uncommon gold, almost welcoming if she didn’t know better. Chloe looked at him, puzzled. There was something so very foreign about him, so other, though she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. It was like he wore a mask, one so perfect that it became harder to miss the small, imperfect details. Eyes a little too narrow, ears a little too long, teeth a little too sharp—

“You’re not what I expected,” Luka said. “Looking at you, and then knowing you… It’s not what I expected.”

“Would it surprise you to learn that I hear that a lot?”

“Would it surprise you to learn that I like that?”

His fool’s gold eyes glanced at her askance, and Chloe swallowed the sudden spike of adrenaline that sent her heart to pounding. 

_Circling, like a shark…_

“I think you’re intrigued by me,” Chloe said, her voice low over the din of merrymaking all around them. “I think you like power. You’re drawn to it like a moth to the flame. And I think maybe, you like the burning.”

She sidled closer, mindful of the eyes on them, and nudged her knee against his inner thigh. 

“But I’ve burned many moths who stood in my way,” she said.

“Except one,” Luka said, unflinching as he slowly inched closer and pressed against her. “…Would you like to?”

Their legs entwined, but their hands remained beholden to their drinks. Chloe had never felt so hot at the thought of cutting down the one man standing between her and true freedom. She had never seriously entertained the thought, let alone conspired its fruition with another. Gabriel had given her the means to choose the life she wanted, and for that she owed him an honor debt. But in this world, a queen was not a queen without a king to make her so. No matter how high she rose, no matter how many treasures she plundered, she would always be subject to the will of another.

“I want to be free,” she said, unsure where this honesty came from. “I want a life that’s truly mine, whatever form it takes.”

Luka seemed to come apart before her eyes, a slow destruction that she would have missed entirely had she not been watching him so closely. For a fleeting moment, he was entirely, exquisitely knowable like he’d never been before. “I want that, too. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then take it. Don’t think twice,” Chloe said, taking his wrist without thinking. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“No.” He gazed at her like the sight of her broke his heart. “But I wish it was.”

Some of the crewmen came stumbling over with every intention of roping Luka in to a raucous shanty to entertain them. Before Chloe knew it, he was swept away, agreeable and smiling as per his usual.

He caught her eye over the crowd, and she smiled and raised her tankard as he took up his lyre. 

_Who are you?_ she wondered. 

But a part of her knew she would never really know as he all but transformed to oblige his crew mates. Perhaps that was his spell over her. The moth is ever intrigued by the flame, until even the burning is nothing less than a rapture.

And what a way to go.

* * *

 

“Adrien, let me tell you about this thing called a bad omen,” Nino said as they cleaned and oiled pistols. “I’ll give you the summary version. A mythical creature named after a violent loa is a _bad fucking omen_.”

“It’s just a name,” Adrien said.

“Uh-huh, and names definitely have no power. Nope, they’re just random jumbles of letters and sounds we assign to each other with no meaning or symbolism whatsoever. I’m so unreasonable.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Okay, I hear you, but come on. You talk about her like she’s some unknowable force of nature or something.”

Nino lowered the pistol he was cleaning and looked at Adrien like he was the unknowable force of nature here. “She’s a _mermaid_.”

“She has a _name_.”

“Yeah, a name meant to strike fear and humility in men.”

“Nino.”

“ _Adrien._ ”

They were at an impasse, and so they resumed their work in silence. 

“All I’m saying is you should be really careful you don’t forget what she is,” Nino said at length. “Honestly, you shouldn’t really be talking to her at all. She probably doesn’t want to talk to anybody. I wouldn’t.”

“I won’t forget,” Adrien said glumly. “Just, I don’t know, she’s locked up like a prisoner. I know she’s not human, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“She tried to kill you. She would’ve done it if I hadn’t harpooned her.”

“She’s not trying to kill me now.”

“She’s _chained up_.”

They were not going to see eye to eye, that much was clear. Nino meant well, and Adrien trusted his judgment, but in this he was wrong. He had to be. The mermaid—Marinette was a person, thinking and intelligent and feeling. And as her captor, Adrien felt it was his duty to demystify some things for her. She had a right to know why this had happened to her, that she mattered. 

_She doesn’t matter._

At least, that was what his father would say. A means to an end. But even so, Adrien could not stop thinking about her. About how if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t be in this mess. 

An insistent meow pulled him from his thoughts, and Adrien reached out to pet the black cat that had wandered close for attention. “Good boy, Chat,” he cooed, scratching the cat behind his ears. 

Like all the cats aboard the _Hawk Moth_ , this one was kept as a mouser. The others kept to themselves, emerging only to snap up the scraps from the crew’s meals to supplement their own, but this one had taken a liking to Adrien over the years. Thinking back on it, Chat Noir had been a member of the crew for as long as Adrien himself. For an old cat, he was spritely and strong. 

“No sense in naming a cat at sea,” Nino grumbled.

“No more sense than in naming a mermaid?”

Nino rolled his eyes. Chat purred and gazed up at him with luminous, green eyes as he accepted the pet rather magnanimously. As was his prerogative, Chat later followed Adrien like a second shadow when he once more visited Marinette. As before, she was chained to the wall with nowhere to go, and to Adrien’s dismay she still had only the thin blanket to cover herself. The bed looked unused, and he found her with sitting with her back to him looking out the window at the setting sun. 

“I’m sorry,” Adrien said as he began to remove his leather vest and shirt. “I didn’t think you’d be left without clothing.”

Marinette eyed him and his offered shirt askance, but said nothing.

Adrien dared to approach. “Come on, please? I’m just trying to help.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. 

A response of any kind being an improvement, Adrien humored her. “I am. Marinette, please, just take it. I have plenty.”

She looked at him, and he was taken aback at the venom in her eyes. “If you want to help, then release me.”

“I can’t do that.” He averted his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry.” She spat the word like a curse. “You are all the same. I’m such a fool.”

He was about to respond to that when he noticed her wrists, bruised from being manhandled, and her shoulder, still caked with blood from her harpooning. Adrien’s heart sank and he reached for her. She recoiled and bared her teeth in a hiss, but there was no getting far sitting down. Adrien flinched at her obvious disgust, but he couldn’t hold it against her. If anything, he was the most to blame for her situation. She had every right to despise him.

So why had she given him her name?

Adrien sat down on the floor to be at her eye level. “I understand why you think that. And I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but all the same, you should know that I would never have tried to catch you if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.”

She said nothing again, and he wrenched a hand in his hair, miserable. Never had he felt such a powerful judgment from another living creature. 

“It makes no difference what you think of me,” he said, knowing it was a lie. Beyond all reason and sense, it mattered to him immensely what this mermaid thought of him. Perhaps he felt responsible for her wellbeing, or lack thereof. Perhaps it was simply guilt. Either way, he knew he had no right to ask for her approval after the role he had played in her imprisonment. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do everything in his power to rectify what had been done. “All the same, I want to help you. Anything, just say the word. Or don’t. You don’t have to say anything. I’ll… I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. You’ll never have to see me again, just…” He laid the shirt down next to her. “If you change your mind.”

It did not surprise Adrien that she still said nothing, but it stung all the same. Even so, he forced himself to get up and leave her in peace, like she clearly wanted. Maybe he never should have come at all. 

“Wait,” she said.

Adrien froze. 

“What is…”

When she didn’t elaborate, he glanced back at her. She had his shirt in one hand and clutched the blanket around her naked form in the other, but seemed unsure what to do with either. Despite himself, Adrien couldn’t help but smile a little. 

“It’s a shirt,” he said. “You just slip it over your head, for cover. It’ll keep you warm.”

She sniffed it experimentally and made a face. Well, he hadn’t had a chance to properly bathe since they’d last made port, after all…

He almost laughed at the sight of her sticking her arm through the neck hole. She was going to need a little help. He approached cautiously, pausing when she shot him a warning look, but her disappointment seemed to be less with him and more with the situation. 

“May I?” he asked, offering a hand. 

There was a split second of hesitation on her part, but the look in her eyes was defiant and bold, as if she would rather die than show weakness in front of him or any other human. He supposed he couldn’t fault her for that. Averting his gaze, Adrien fumbled at the shirt and helped her work it over her head and shoulders as the blanket pooled around her waist. It was big on her, and he reached for the buttons at the chest to give her a bit more coverage before his wayward propriety hit him like a slap to the face. 

Blushing madly, he recoiled and looked away. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

Her gaze on him was heavy, and he waited for the retort that was surely coming. Instead, she took up the task herself and buttoned the shirt up slowly, her fingers unused to the motion but learning quickly. Soon enough, she was as decent as she was like to get, and Adrien chanced a look at her. 

The ruby at her throat was dark and bloody in the gloaming, and it drew his wandering eye. No highborn lady would wear an uncut jewel such as this, but there were many tales of mermaids sinking ships to plunder their bounties. It was said that they favored gold and jewels the same as men, and that deep under the ocean they kept caches full of priceless treasures. Marinette’s ruby looked more like something mined from the earth, not a piece plundered from a sunken treasure vessel. 

Before he got the chance to ask, Chat Noir meowed and rubbed up against his thigh. The tomcat liked attention, and he was very vocal when his need was greatest. Marinette stared at him curiously, and Adrien scratched him behind the ears. 

“Chat Noir,” he said by way of introduction. “Just a cat.”

She looked at him, and he realized that there was no earthly reason why a mermaid would know what a cat was. 

“He catches mice. Pests that stow away on the ship.” 

She continued to watch him like he was speaking a foreign language. 

“A…friend. He’s my friend,” Adrien said, rubbing the cat and coaxing a rich purr from him. 

“Friend,” Marinette said.

“Yes. We’ve been together for as long as I can remember.”

She offered her fingers to Chat, and he sniffed them a moment before giving them a lick. Marinette gasped and yanked her fingers back in surprise. 

“What’s wrong?” Adrien asked. 

“It’s strange! Like a rough coral.”

Adrien could not help but laugh at the absurdity of a mermaid, the ocean’s most fearsome predator, flustered over a cat’s ticklish tongue. “I suppose it is.”

She looked at him oddly. “You laugh at me.”

“No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you, just.” He gestured aimlessly. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop that.”

“Hm?”

“You’ve said it many times, you’re sorry.”

“Well, because I am. And I guess it’s just something you say—”

Marinette touched her fingers to his lips to silence him. “You are careless with your words. They lose their meaning.”

Her fingers were cold to the touch, and Adrien feared he’d lost his words entirely. He could not help but remember her kiss, blushing cold. She withdrew. 

“Words should not be wasted,” she said. 

“Is that why you kissed me?” he asked. “For meaning?”

“Your song was beautiful, and I thought your words may be, too. I wanted to know…”

“Know?”

She looked up at him through her lashes, and for a baffling instant, Adrien thought she almost looked shy. 

“Humans, I wanted to know… I always…” She touched the ruby at her throat.

Adrien smiled at how simple it was. A mermaid curious about humans? He hadn’t lured her out at all; she had come of her own volition. He had never heard of a mermaid behaving in such a manner. They were beasts, feared predators even seasoned sailors knew to avoid at all costs. The Agrestes knew that better than most, and yet here she was, an honest to god mermaid, drawn to him and his kind simply for a glimpse into a world that had no place for her.

And he had netted her like a choice catch. 

“Marinette,” he said softly. “I don’t have the words to tell you how deeply sorry I am. I truly mean that.”

She looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time that night, he felt that she heard him. She did not accept his apology, though she was under no obligation to do so. But they lapsed into the almost comfortable silence of two people who have finally understood something of each other, however small. 

“You’re hurt,” Adrien said at length, indicating her bloody arm. “Will you let me help you?”

She hesitated, those ocean blue eyes searching for any hint of treachery. “…All right.”

He smiled and offered his hand. “All right.”

* * *

 

Chloe was enjoying a hot meal and some much missed company at _Rena Rouge’s_. Alya had the night off while she trained up a new girl in the kitchens, and she and Chloe were huddled around a bottle of aged rum at Chloe’s favorite table. 

“Maybe I should join your crew,” Alya said, her face flushed with drink and laughter. “To think, all that gold sitting forgotten at the bottom of the sea just waiting for you. A girl could get used to that.”

Chloe snorted. “It’s not always like that. Luka’s information was good, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Lucky.”

Alya grinned wickedly. “Hm, yes, a pretty boy with a golden secret or two. We should all hope to get so lucky.”

Chloe’s eyes wandered to said pretty boy entertaining some of her crew with a story. “It’s not what you think.” 

“Of course not.” Alya sipped her rum, a knowing look in her eyes. 

Other patrons had gathered with the members of Chloe’s crew to share their ale and stories.

“You know I get bored easily,” Chloe said nonchalantly. 

“Yes, clearly staring at him all night proves how boring he is.”

“I’m not staring.” To prove it, Chloe looked resolutely at Alya, who was still grinning like some sly fox.

“Sure, sure. Anyway, what are you going to do with your share?”

Chloe shifted in her seat. Her cutlass was a comforting weight at her hip. “Invest it.”

“Talk about boring.”

“Forgive me for seeing the futility in spending every last penny on drink. Some of us have retirement plans.”

Alya looked at her pointedly. “You and I both know the only retirement you’re looking at is out at sea.”

“Unless the noose finds me first.”

But it wouldn’t. Chloe was not so arrogant as to think she would never be caught, but her crew was strong and under Gabriel Agreste’s protection. Around these parts, that meant something. Even so, the sooner she handed over the _Hawk Moth_ ’s share of the _León_ plunder, the safer she would be. 

“Oi, back off!” Alix said forcefully. 

Chloe and Alya looked up just as a drunk man threw down a chair in a rage. In the span of seconds, what had begun as friendly banter escalated to violence. Swords were drawn, steel sang, and tavern wenches screamed and fled. Alya was on her feet in an instant, dagger drawn, but Chloe was faster and already crossing the tavern. 

“Not under my roof!” Alya shouted. 

She was shoved by one of the instigators, and Chloe caught her arm before she could fall and injure herself. Alix had drawn her sword. 

“What use has a woman for steel?” one of the men taunted. “Put that away, darlin’, before you hurt yourself.”

“Back the fuck off,” Alix spat. 

“Not without what we came for,” said another man. “Be a good lass and tell me where you’re keepin’ the _León_ gold.” He lunged, and Alix was forced to defend. 

Luka went for his sword, but one of the instigators was a giant of a man and knocked it out of his hand before Luka could get a good swing at him. He punched Luka in the jaw, and Luka fell back over a table. Chloe flew to them and cut the giant’s belly. 

“Ahh! Bitch—”

Chloe kicked his shin, forced him to a knee, and pressed her sword to his throat. She drew her pistol and aimed it at the center of the brawl between her crewmen and the others. Everyone froze at the sound of the hammer cocking. “That’s enough,” she commanded. 

Kim had one of the men in a headlock, and Alix was bleeding from a deep gash in her cheek. Everyone stared at Chloe and the very loaded gun she had aimed at one of the attackers, a stringy guy who hadn’t bathed in a month. He spat on the floor and fixed her with a heated look. 

“Pirates takin’ orders from a woman? I seen it all now.”

“Keep talking and I’ll give you a closer look,” Chloe said. 

He sneered. “Pussy whipped, the lot o’ you.”

“Well, this pussy’s worth her weight in Spanish gold, you fucking swab,” said Alix. 

Without warning, the big man on his knees lunged and made a grab for Chloe’s pistol. It went off and blew a hole in the ceiling, and she nearly lost her balance. Chaos ensued. If Chloe didn’t put a stop to this right away, she could lose more than a few crewmen. 

A wayward blade nicked her arm, and she swung around. The giant had picked up Luka’s cutlass and swung it like a toddler swings a stick. He lumbered at Chloe, but Luka smashed an ale tankard over his head. It wasn’t enough to stop him, but it slowed him down long enough for Chloe to run her sword through his chest. 

“Get Alya,” Chloe said to Luka even before the light left the giant’s eyes. 

The stringy leader of the ruffians had somehow managed to get Kim on the floor, his nose broken and bloody as the man kicked his ribs and raised his sword for the killing blow. Chloe flew at him, but he saw her coming and parried her blow. For the next few seconds they danced the steel dance, blades singing as they clashed and clanged in the cramped space, partners waltzing around tables and chairs and dying men. 

He was skilled, but Chloe was quicker and had the advantage of being underestimated. She grabbed the back of a nearby chair and threw it down in between them, disrupting his footwork just long enough to slash his knees. He cried out and toppled over the chair. Wide, brown eyes met Chloe’s with a mixture of hate and fear, and she was disgusted to look upon him. Without hesitation, she drove her blade through his throat and spilled his blood on her boots. 

With their leader killed, the others soon stopped their attack, and the room fell quiet. Chloe wiped blood from her cheek and glared around the room at those gathered. 

“Anyone else care to take a closer look at my steel?” Chloe said. “Well?”

No one said a word. Chloe withdrew her sword and wiped the blood off on the dead man’s jerkin. 

“ _Rena Rouge’s_ is under my protection, and the protection of Gabriel Agreste by extension,” Chloe said. “You violated the rules of hospitality to draw your swords on my men under this roof. I hereby banish you from Nassau. Show your faces at port again, and I’ll pussy whip your corpses bloody.”

“And take your trash with you!” Alix said, kicking the leader’s corpse.

In minutes, the remaining aggressors shuffled out carrying their fallen and leaving a trail of blood in their wake. Once they were gone, Chloe looked around at her men. 

“As for you lot,” she said, her sword still drawn. “Spend your cuts as you see fit, but keep your fucking mouths shut. I’ll strike you down myself if I find out you invited bottom feeders to feast on my ship while you were three sheets to the wind.”

A miserable chorus of ‘aye, captains’ resounded. Everyone gathered themselves, and Chloe gave Kim a hand up. His face looked bad and he clutched his stomach, but he managed to stand tall all the same. 

“Chloe,” he said, contrite. 

She touched a gentle hand to his cheek, but her gaze was hard. “Get yourself cleaned up.”

Alya was already barking orders to the boys and tavern wenches she employed to clean up the mess and see to the injured. 

“Look, Chloe, you know I like you, but I can’t have fights in my bar,” Alya said. “It’s bad for business. Dead men don’t drink.”

“It won’t happen again, on my word. I’ll pay for the damage.”

Alya shook her head. “It’s not that, only… Look, I’m ignorant of your lot’s ways, but my girls here know to divvy their cuts as soon as they earn them. All the better to appease their betters, if you take my meaning. ”

“I take it, and I’ll ask you not to give it again.”

“Just take care of it.”

Luka’s face was purpling with a bruise and bloody from a shallow cut. Chloe eyed him suspiciously. 

“You fought poorly,” she said. “Lost your sword before you could swing it even once.”

“I’ve never been much use with a sword,” Luka said.

“Then how did you survive this long?” _Especially with the secret to the lost treasure of_ León _up your sleeve?_

He seemed to hear her unspoken question. “In my family, the women are the fighters, the men the lovers.”

“Then maybe I should have recruited one of your sisters instead of you.”

Chloe couldn’t help her anger at the thought that Luka may have been equally to blame for the escalation as any of the others. Singers were known for their free tongues. Was she too blinded by her attraction to him to notice the liability he posed? Or was she being paranoid? He was the newest member of her crew, the least known, his loyalties not yet tested. 

“I don’t think you would much like any of my sisters,” he said. 

“I don’t think I much like you right now, either.” She turned her back on him. “I need a crew that can keep quiet when they can, and draw their swords when they can’t. You said you wanted this life, but you’re doing a damn good job of throwing it away.”

“Chloe, wait—”

“Captain,” Chloe snapped. “I’m your captain, sailor. For now.”

She stalked off to nurse her wounds, and left him alone to nurse his. 

* * *

 

Days passed, and there was as yet no word from the _Hawk Moth_ about when she would make port. Gabriel Agreste was known for his strange reclusiveness, as miserly with his secrets as with his gold. Chloe had a letter from Sabrina Raincomprix, daughter and first mate to Roger Raincomprix, one of the pirate captains in Gabriel’s armada. In it, she said the _Hawk Moth_ had last been sighted off the coast of Hispaniola headed southeast, but that had been weeks ago. Chloe had half a mind to go to Hispaniola herself. If Gabriel wasn’t coming to her, then she would have to go to him. 

Over a game of dice, Alix suggested that maybe the French Navy had finally caught up with the old turncoat and he wasn’t ever coming back. 

“He’ll come back,” Chloe said, surveying the lay of the dice on her desk and pondering her bet. “Like a goddamned cockroach. He always comes back.”

Alix threw her dice down and upped the stakes. “Well, the month’s about up. Crew’s all crawling back good ’n sated. If you want to chase the _Hawk Moth_ , now’s the time. But it’s a fool’s errand if you ask me.”

Chloe threw her dice, and Alix swore colorfully when she lost the round. Reluctantly, she slid a shiny escudo to Chloe in payment. It glowed like a miniature sun in the muted candlelight. 

“Only a fool would presume that anything in this world or the next could kill Captain Gabriel Agreste before he’s good and ready.” She disappeared the coin up her sleeve. “We sail by week’s end. See that everything is ready.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Alix showed herself out, and Chloe was alone in her captain’s quarters with her gold. 

And so much gold it was. Chests of the stuff, heavy-laden, and she their only audience. Something was bothering her, had been for days, and she could not shake the feeling. No drink or gold or company could slake it, and the silence alone was worst of all. She got up and walked around her quarters, desperate for some work to do. Her nautical maps were marked up with past missions, past bounties, past follies. 

Soft lyre music filtered through her window, and Chloe was soon drawn to a familiar, lilting voice.

_“Well met, well met, my own true love_  
_Well met, well met, cried he._  
_I've just returned from the salt, salt sea_  
_And it's all for the love of thee.”_

She recognized Luka’s singing and, despite her better judgment, wandered to the deck to listen. He was playing his lyre alone, and only a few of the crew were around to listen. 

_“Oh I could have married the king's daughter dear_  
_And she would have married me,_  
_But I have refused the crown of gold_  
_And it's all for the sake of thee.”_

His face was faintly mottled with bruises from the bar fight several days past, but to look upon him Chloe felt her heart quicken. Was is just him? Or his song? She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t much care right now as she let the music transport her somewhere far, far away from here. 

_“What hills, what hills are those, my love_  
_That are so bright and free?_  
_Those are the hills of Heaven, my love_  
_But not for you and me.”_

He knew she was there watching him. Somehow, he always knew even before his gaze fell upon her. Silver eyes aglow with moonlight, softly haunting, haunting, haunting her. And yet, she could not look away.

_“What hills, what hills, are those, my love_  
_That are so dark and low?_  
_Those are the hills of Hell, my love_  
_Where you and I must go.”_

Chloe could not stand to be here any longer. She retreated to her quarters once more and sequestered herself inside. Her maps painted paths to places unknown, far away, but not far enough. His song was in her head, under her skin, a second heartbeat quickening her blood. 

_“I envy you,”_ he’d confessed sadly. 

Sadly…yes, he had been sad. Then, and now. Sad and lingering, phantomwise, in the corridors of her perception, never quite gone, never quite banished. She had invited him in, after all. 

A knock on the door. 

She didn’t have to turn to know it was him. He let himself in (he always let himself in). But he stopped, waited, hovered, _loomed_. What did the dead and the damned know of mercy except how to withhold it?

His fingers mercifully slithered around her shoulders, lingered on the bandage over her cut arm. His breath was hot on her neck, but his lips were cold and wanting. 

“Chloe,” he said.

She didn’t know where these visions of death had come from, or why. But in this room full of gold to shame the sun, she would sooner take the moon and all its false light simply to feel close to something. To be haunted, after all, was to never be truly alone.

“I feel like none of this is real,” she said as she stared down at her maps, her world, so vast and blue and empty. “Like you’re a dream, but not mine.”

He surrounded her like the ocean at high tide, and she wanted nothing more than to fall back into him and drown. _Madness._

“Is that what you want?” he said. “For me to be yours?”

“I don’t know. I don’t _understand_ it. This…you. I don’t know.”

He hesitated, debating. “If you ask me…I’ll tell you everything.”

That sadness again, as deep and cold and dark as the sea itself. Chloe shuddered in his arms. 

“But once you know,” he whispered against her neck, “then the dream will be over, and I…” He tightened his arms around her.

“You what? What will happen?” She turned in his arms to see him, but he wouldn’t look at her. 

“I only wanted…” 

She took his face in her hands and made him look at her. “Luka.”

He met her gaze. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to stop.”

For the life of her, Chloe could not remember what had made her so cross with him anymore. It no longer mattered. He was here, he was real, and he looked at her like she was the last thing he would ever see in this life or the next. 

“Then don’t stop,” she said. 

He kissed her like he never had before, with an honest, almost vulnerable longing as he savored every moment of her. Their clothes became an afterthought as she dragged him to her bed. 

* * *

 

Hours later, Chloe lay in bed unable to sleep. Luka’s arms trapped her against his bare chest, and he traced lazy circles over her stomach.

“Why do you envy me?” she asked softly. 

His breathing was even, and for a moment she wondered if he had heard her. “You say you’re not truly free, but you are. You’re free to live the life you’ve chosen.”

“You’ve chosen this life, too. Wish or want, you’re living it now.”

“No.” His fingers wandered higher and traced her ribs. “I chose _you_.”

Answers that weren’t answers at all. He said he would tell her everything if she asked, but Chloe wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, wanted to think. If he was a dream, then she wasn’t ready to wake up. It had never been like this with Kim, or any other man before. Something about Luka drew her in and didn’t want to let go. Chloe had never known someone so deeply without really knowing them at all. 

“Did you?”

“Yes,” he said with a conviction that surprised her. “I chose you.”

Chloe had never been the type to be swept away by grand romantic gestures. She had left that life behind to chase the sea and make her own fortune. She could remember the fateful day she left her father and her comfortable life behind, never to look back. Gabriel had offered her a place in his crew, his tutelage, and even his trust as she proved herself capable. A daughter of Audrey Simone had to be worth her salt, and Chloe had every intention of proving her legacy earned. It had been a battle every day, and she would fight this war until the day she died, Alya had the right of it. But she had chosen this life. And she would take what she wanted, the same as the men who had come before her. 

“If I ask you to stay…will you?” she asked.

“For as long as I can.”

Chloe bit her lip hard enough to hurt. There was a warning in his promise, an ending to this strange hypnosis she’d fallen into. It was what she should have wanted to hear—to be free meant to be untethered, as changing as the sea. But here, anchored in his arms, she found little joy in the inevitable drifting apart. 

“Then stay.” 

He smiled against her neck. “As my queen commands.”

♕

Chloe moaned when his fingers wandered to her breast and tugged on her nipple. Frosted kisses drew shivers up her spine, but his tongue was warm and reverent on her bare skin. She reached for him and found him hard and wanting her. 

“Luka,” she gasped, pressing her back more firmly against him. 

He rose up on his elbow and dipped his hand between her thighs. “Tell me again.” 

“I’m… What—”

Chloe lost her train of thought when he pressed a finger to her clit, circling it slowly as he pleasured her senseless. Her skin was on fire, and she marveled at this strange, exquisite power between them. Through the haze, she reached for him, desperate to sink her fingers in his hair and feel him closer. He obliged her with a slow kiss on her neck, teeth threatening as they scraped teasingly over her skin. Chloe moaned when he entered her and locked her in against his hips. There was something almost poignant about him as he took his time with her, not at all like that first, frenetic time she’d taken him to bed.

“Tell me you want me to stay with you,” Luka whispered against her neck, his voice thick with desire. 

Every languid thrust sent her head spinning, and she took his hand for something to hold on to. He surrounded her completely as they took their time finding a slow, lovely rhythm. 

“Yes,” she said, hardly recognizing her own voice. 

“Yes, what?” 

“I want—” Chloe gasped when he pinched her nipple again, insistent. “I want you to stay.”

He pressed a kiss to her ear, and she could feel his shallow, pleading breaths. “Always.” 

“Always,” she said, so close to the edge. 

Her orgasm rippled through her in long, languorous waves, but Luka’s arms anchored her to him as they both drifted, sinking, drowning in each other for as long as this feeling would last.

♕

“Luka,” she said softly in the darkness, still and quiet as the deep.

“Sleep,” he whispered. “I’ll stay here with you, I promise.”

Exhausted, Chloe closed her eyes and fell asleep in his arms, dreaming that however deep she sank, he would sink with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette is in fact the name of a loa from Haitian voodoo mythology. The loa is pretty creepy and badass from what I could find, which was perfect for the monstrous mermaid vibe I want to go for in this fic. Her colors are red and black (!!!), and she was said to either free people from bondage or drag them back. Not a perfect comparison by any means, but I thought some of the similarities were pretty cool.


	5. No Quarter

In her dreams, she was dancing. 

The whisper of her skirt about her ankles was like a lover’s kiss, softly silken. Her dark hair flowed long and free and thick behind her. He gathered it in his fingers and pulled, as if to keep a part of her for himself.

In her dreams, she laughed and loved and lived in his arms. 

But her dream, like him, could not last. She woke in a gloom, the sun setting low, alone in her chambers. Her dark hair was as ever long and free and thick behind her, but when she entwined her own fingers through it, it was not the same. 

It was not the same. 

Bridgette rose from her anemone bed, careful not to disturb the clownfish and domino fish that darted among the poisoned fronds and shared her chambers. Her black-scaled tail was a long lash of pure muscle and magic, and when she waved her hand to activate the bioluminescent creatures that lived in the shadows, it glimmered with a spell of crimson. Her scales snaked over her waist and chest, bruising handprints upon her changeling skin. 

She drifted to the looking glass recovered from a ship wreck and admired her reflection. Even after all these years, hers was a face made to break hearts and shatter spirits. She reached for a string of starlight pearls nestled in the hollow tube of a green sponge. They brought out the shadows in her eyes, as deep as the midnight sea. She curled her claws around them tenderly. 

_“For you, my lady, I would gather all the stars in the sky.”_

Bridgette’s talons clicked as she tightened her hold on the delicate pearls. A little harder, and their chain would snap. A little tighter, and they would crumble to dust in her palms. A little longer, and she might miss them around her neck. 

She dropped the string of pearls as if they burned, and they disappeared within the sponge. Her reflection in the looking glass bared its fangs behind painted lips. 

_How quickly you forget,_ it spat. 

“I will never forget,” Bridgette spat right back. 

Even in dreams, she could never forget this curse.

She donned her crown of precious red coral, polished thorns nearly as old as she was, and admired her regal reflection. 

“I will never forget,” she said again.

Much like a shadow herself, Bridgette slithered through the drowned halls of her domain. The merling kingdom was a tiered, sprawling city of stone and coral braided around a bottomless blue hole. Crags in the sea shelf smiled to the open ocean above, their coral-encrusted walls a sanctuary from the twisting currents caused by massive whirlpools on the edges of the kingdom. Domed dwellings crowned in green and amber foliose coral clustered along natural channel passages in the sand and stacked in multilevel neighborhood rings. In the center of the city at the mouth of the blue hole, pale pillars rose like teeth grasping for purchase, carved from stone and sand. They twisted together to form a fortress of palatial towers, impregnable.

Great, purple and orange sea fans swayed in the current, and neon nudibranchs clung to them. Colorful reef fish hovered around broad brain coral boulders and bright, red sea sponges, careful not to stray too far as the gloaming crept closer. Christmas tree worms fluttered shyly, starfish fumbled along the sea floor, and arrow crabs frantically fed on anything they could reach from their hovels with their tiny, blue pincers. Tapering morays poked their serrated jaws out of holes in the reef, waiting for nightfall to emerge for the hunt. A school of silver barracuda, each as long as Bridgette herself, circled up from the blue hole, their serrated jaws open and their dark eyes sharp. 

Bridgette wended among the channels of her kingdom and dove over the edge of the blue hole into darkness. Bioluminescent jellyfish parted for her passing and glowed brilliant blue and violet to light her way. Their stinging tentacles caressed her bare arms, velvet venom. They guarded a great treasure trove day and night, but recognized her scales and allowed her passage within. 

Fluorescent black coral grew like weeds along the walls of the honeycomb cache. The tunnel was pitch black, but Bridgette knew her way. It soon opened up into a sunken cathedral. Her swimming disturbed the still waters within, and in moments the hollow cavern exploded with bright, blue light courtesy of millions of tiny shrimp. They banished every shadow, leaving only shelves of treasure gathered over the centuries to be placed here, the merling queen’s vault. 

Gold and silver in every size and shape, from small coins to jeweled chalices, spilled from the shelves and pooled in great piles on the sandy floor. Weathered sea glass, rusted cutlasses, and lacquered chests filled with spices, papyrus, ink, and jewels filled the nooks and crannies to the vaulted roof. The sea’s treasures were best admired alive and alight, but humans valued that which was gilded and unfeeling. Bridgette had never understood why, but she understood that there was power in coveting and sacrifice. She had seen human sailors willingly drown for the promise of wealth and fortune.

There was one treasure here that outshined all the rest. It was the only treasure worth coveting, and it was the first she had collected and brought here. That had been ages ago, when she was the first to wander these sunken halls, alone but for her greatest and only treasure. 

Bridgette swam to the back of the cathedral, and glowing lights followed her. She came to a giant clam glittering crimson between its jaws and ran a long-clawed hand over its tender flesh. The creature opened for her, but its fleshy heart was barren. There was no blood-ruby pendant nestled within, where she had left it in the creature’s care. She stared down at it for a moment, uncomprehending. 

No, she was sure she had left it here. Whenever she did not don it, she left it here for safekeeping. No one knew of its existence, much less its significance. No one except… 

Like a tidal wave, Bridgette’s fury manifested deep within, quiet-soft, and ripped through her as it grew in force and scale. Because if the ruby was not here, then someone had taken it. And if someone had taken it, there was only one place they would go. 

Bridgette opened her mouth and let out an elemental scream that turned the tides against each other. The sea itself seemed to scream with her, the deep opening wide in her anguish and waking slumbering giants. The stink of betrayal made Bridgette gag, and a fierce hunger for that which kept her here tempted her baser instincts. She clung to that feeling, old and familiar, and let it consume her. 

Her chosen daughters appeared moments later, never far from their queen in her hour of need.

“Mother,” said Kagami, polished trident in hand and ready to fight. Her ghost-white tail was an unadorned lash with a stiff fin built for speed and precision swimming. Kagami was the fiercest of Bridgette’s favored daughters, a warrior from the day she’d been born. There was a ruthless intelligence in her narrow, dark eyes. “What ails you?”

The other, Lila, remained silent and watching. She had her loyal familiar with her, an octopus that changed its color as often as Lila changed her mood. For now, it matched her amber tail and clung to her skirt of elegant fins. Lila was no less a warrior than Kagami, but her talents lay in stealth and subterfuge. 

“My ruby,” Bridgette said, hardly able to contain herself. “It’s disappeared.”

Kagami brandished her trident. “Disappeared?”

“You two are the only ones who know of its power.” Bridgette advanced on them. She didn’t want to believe they had betrayed her, but there was no other explanation. 

Lila’s glittering, green eyes looked between Bridgette and the giant clam. “Where is Marinette?” Her octopus glowed yellow with suspicion. “She should have come when she felt your distress.”

Bridgette faltered. In her blind fury, she had forgotten about Marinette, her youngest and newest favored daughter. But what a preposterous thought. Marinette did not know what Kagami and Lila knew. She was still green, too naïve to be burdened with such terrible, powerful knowledge. 

And yet, she had not come.

Bridgette bared her fangs and swam quickly past Kagami and Lila. The jellyfish were blown asunder in her wake, too slow to avoid her wrath. In moments, she was looking down on her kingdom and all the merlings who had emerged from their homes, drawn to the maelstrom her rage threatened. Maids had gathered up their spears and tridents, and men summoned their aquatic familiars. It was not often they felt their queen’s abyssal wrath, not like this. 

“Where is my favored daughter?” Bridgette bellowed at them. 

No one answered. Kagami and Lila caught up with Bridgette and hovered behind her. Bridgette felt the shadow of fear and betrayal needle between her scales like a sickness. There were so many questions, and she without answers. 

“I will find her,” Kagami offered.

“You’re already going after the humans and their prize,” Lila said. “Your consort will be expecting you. It should be me to find Marinette.”

“No, it should be me. I’m the strongest of our warriors. Yours is a delicate ruin unsuited for direct combat.”

Lila bared her fangs. “My _delicate ruin_ provides you with all the immortal flesh you could ask for.”

“Lila will go,” Bridgette said. “Kagami, I cannot spare you from your sacred duty should Marinette’s fate already be sealed.” 

Kagami made no secret of her displeasure at the thought, but Lila glowed in triumph. Her octopus curled his flush-red tentacles about her scaled shoulders. 

“Yes, Mother,” Lila said sweetly. “We won’t fail you.”

“No, you won’t.”

Lila averted her gaze at the underlying threat. She knew better than the others the shape of Bridgette’s wrath, having seen its glory once before when another dared to betray the merling queen. 

It was not spoken of by those who wished to keep their freedom. 

Kagami swam off, no doubt nursing a budding rage of her own at the thought of being passed over for her sly sister for such an important mission.

“Lila,” Bridgette said. “You may take whomever you choose to aid you on your mission, but remember that the ruby is your true goal. Should anyone stand in your way…do not hesitate.”

Lila’s octopus blanched pale green with trepidation. But she knew better than to question her queen and simply nodded. “I never do.”

* * *

 

Marinette sat in her cabin alone. The sway of the sea had lulled her into a fitful sleep, and the wooden floor was hard and uncomfortable to sleep on. She could not for the life of her understand how humans could tolerate such living conditions. Under the sea, she lived a life afloat. Nothing and nowhere was closed to her; she need only swim where her heart desired, be it high or low or far, far away. But to be trapped in a small, dark room unable to move, much less find comfort upon a hard surface, was a new and unusual kind of torture she had never imagined. 

She clutched the ruby at her throat and closed her eyes. 

_Please, if you can hear me…_

Marinette was suddenly filled with a terrible, poisonous anger—at the pirates for capturing her, at her hopeless situation, and most of all at herself. She never should have given in to temptation. She would not give in to it now. 

“Mrow.”

Marinette looked up, startled to find the creature called a cat perched high up on the window sill. His luminous, green eyes watched her behind a mask of black fur, unblinking. She held the creature’s gaze. Unlike the men who brought her fish and seawater to satiate her hunger, Chat Noir did not recoil from her. He was not afraid. 

Nor did he venture closer without his master around to guard him. 

There was a knock on the door, and Marinette sat up on the floor to hide her chained ankle from sight. Only one human ever announced his presence like this. 

“May I come in?” Adrien asked, poking his head inside. 

“Yes.”

He was carrying a bundle of something under his arm and closed the door behind him. Chat Noir leaped down from the window sill and rubbed up against his boot, purring. 

“Chat, hello there,” Adrien said, smiling. “How did you get in here?”

Marinette watched them interact and wondered how Adrien could be so relaxed around the creature. There was something unsettling about the cat, those eyes that seemed to see things that were not there. He was friendly when Adrien was about, but a wholly different beast without. Marinette did not trust him. She trusted no one aboard this ship bound for a dark purpose.

“I brought you some fresh clothing,” Adrien said, presenting her with the bundle like one might an offering to an indifferent god. “It’s men’s clothes. All we’ve got aboard the ship. Dresses aren’t exactly practical at sea…”

Marinette stared at the bundle of clothes. They looked dry and warm, and they did not smell like him as much as the shirt he’d given her off his back before. He took her silent observation for confusion. 

“It’s just breeches and a fresh shirt, some socks for nighttime. It can get cold in the dark.” Adrien unwrapped the bundle and showed her the different articles of clothing. “Here, I have the key to your shackle so you can dress properly.”

He showed her an iron key and offered her his other hand in a silent question. Marinette looked between the key and him. 

“My—the captain entrusted me with this key on the promise that once you’re changed, the shackle goes back on. But I’m not going to do that.”

“Why?”

He ran a hand through his messy blond hair, drawing her gaze. “You haven’t slept in the bed at all. You’ve barely moved from that spot.” Green eyes lingered on her face, knowing but not judging. “You can’t escape if you can’t walk.” 

Unbidden, Marinette’s anger flared again and fed on the irrational shame of being unable to perform an action she had never once tried in her life. It was nonetheless degrading to be thought of as so helpless that the minimum of security would be too much to afford her. If Adrien read her internalized rage, he did not let on.

“May I touch you?” he asked in a soft, subdued voice that did not sound like him at all. 

Marinette was momentarily taken aback at the show of deference. He still held out his hand to her, waiting for her decision. As suddenly as it had reared its ugly head, her anger subsided like wind failing sails, and she was left bereft. The iron around her ankle was suddenly cold and heavy. Slowly, she pushed aside her threadbare blanket and showed him her shackled foot. 

“You may,” she said, just as softly. 

Adrien nodded and focused on her ankle. Marinette watched him as he reached for her, haltingly, as if he was afraid she might burst into bubbles at his touch. His fingers were warm on her bare skin, almost unpleasantly so. But his touch was gentle as he unlocked the iron shackle and carefully unwrapped it from her abused ankle. Neither of them spoke as he let his fingers linger a moment on the ugly, purple ring that marred her flesh. His other hand was just as warm when it brushed her bare foot and warmed her heel. He pressed down on her bruising, a pressured pain that brought an inexplicable relief to her swollen limb. 

She hissed and fisted her blanket, and he froze. He briefly caught her eyes, another silent question. They watched each other, and it seemed to Marinette that neither of them breathed for whole minutes as they hovered there upon an uncertain precipice. 

Slowly, he seemed to regain himself, and in a surprising yet silent show of courage, he pressured her ankle again. Marinette’s eyes never left him even as he concentrated on his work slowly massaging the feeling back into her tender flesh. He was close enough to rip, as feeble as the cotton clothes he brought her should she choose to sink her fingers into him. But she did not, and he continued to knead his warmth into her. 

Marinette watched him like a shark the whole time, ready to tear out his eyes should he threaten her in any way. He did not, and she let herself look at him rather than his movements. He was a young human, she surmised. They did not live long, it was said, their youth and beauty as fleeting as the seasons. Strong of body and lean of build, he was much like the others on this ship, hard men living a hard life in a world that did not forgive them their weaknesses. 

But there was a gentleness to him. Hands weathered by rope and steel wielded her like a delicate instrument, fragile not in its frailty but in its value. Among her ilk, softness was a weakness to be culled; in Adrien, it was a mercy that bridged the gap between them if only for a few moments. She was not sure what to make of him.

At length, he released her and got to his feet. “Do you want any help with those?”

Marinette touched the breeches he’d brought and figured they must go over her legs. It seemed simple enough. “No.”

“All right. Then I’ll just…”

He turned his back to give her some privacy. Chat Noir offered her no such courtesy. Marinette narrowed her eyes at the cat. He would not intimidate her. She touched her swollen ankle briefly. It tingled with the memory of Adrien’s touch, and when she wiggled her toes, she could feel warmth spread to them, too. It was not much, but it was better than remaining chained up. 

She quickly pulled the breeches over her bare legs and let the laces dangle freely below her navel, unsure what to do with them. She changed her shirt for the fresh one but left the socks untouched. 

“I’m finished,” she said. 

He turned and smiled when he saw that she’d managed to put everything on correctly. His smile fell when he noticed the laces on her breeches. “Not quite finished.” He approached and crouched down at her eye level. His nose and cheeks were covered in a dusting of freckles she had not noticed before. “Do you know how to tie a knot?”

Adrien removed the laces from his own breeches so she could practice on the leather string. It took her a few tries, but she soon got the hang of it. The technique was a little trickier when the laces were attached to her, but she managed well enough. Adrien grinned at her handiwork. 

“Not bad,” he said. “We’ll make a sailor out of you yet.” He offered her his hands again. “Ready?”

Marinette frowned. “Ready for what?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “To walk. You don’t want to stay on the floor, do you?”

_I don’t want to stay here at all,_ she thought. 

But she held her tongue. 

Intrigued and admittedly a little anxious to regain some measure of mobility, Marinette took his hands. 

“All right, so just unfold your legs like that… Yes, that’s good. You can lean on me, I’ve got you,” he said. 

Chat Noir watched them from the bed as he licked himself clean, either extremely bored or extremely amused. Marinette ignored him in favor of concentrating on the unnatural distribution of her weight out of water on limbs as new as the day she’d been born. 

“There you go,” Adrien encouraged her. 

Marinette’s knees wobbled as she struggled to stand, and fearing for her balance, she clawed at his shoulder for purchase. Adrien wrapped a strong arm around her waist to help her along. Marinette closed her eyes and focused on straightening her spindly legs, but they were unused to supporting her weight. She was sure she made for an absurd sight clinging to a human and reduced to such a feeble shadow of herself. But Marinette was never one to give up on something once she had started. All humans could walk, and so would she. 

“That’s it!” Adrien said, a smile in his voice. 

Marinette dared to open her eyes and looked down. Her legs trembled, the breeches a bit too big for her, and her bruised ankle throbbed. But her feet were flat on the ground toe to toe with Adrien’s, and he supported most of her weight as she attempted to straighten. 

“Just a little more,” he said, his breath warm in her hair. 

Marinette looked up at him, surprised to find him so close when their noses brushed. He flushed scarlet, and Marinette slipped. She yelped in fright when she felt her knees give out beneath her, but Adrien caught her flush against him in an awkward, slightly painful embrace. 

Both breathing hard, Adrien predictably rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Marinette said, her fingers twisted in his shirt to hang on. Her ankle throbbed painfully. “My ankle is sore.”

Adrien tensed and looked down at her in concern. “Of course, I should have realized. Here.”

“What are you—eep!” Marinette gasped when he looped an arm under her legs and lifted her like she weighed nothing at all. She scrambled to hang on to his shoulders lest he drop her, but she need not have bothered. 

He was watching her intently. “I won’t let you fall.”

She was close enough to sink her fingers into his hair if she wanted to. She was close enough to gouge out his pretty eyes if the fancy struck her. Or perhaps, she could steal another kiss and devour the rest of his pitiful, pitiable soul. Marinette was suddenly overcome with the same damnable curiosity that had landed her in this mess—about his kind, about their world, about all of it. 

_Why do you hate them so much?_

But she would find no answers here with Adrien. There was nothing here for her but suffering and death. Gabriel Agreste had promised as much. 

Adrien gently set her on the bed, shooing Chat away to make room for her. It was surprisingly soft compared to the hard floor, and Marinette gathered her tired legs beneath her. Adrien took a knee at the bedside so he was looking up at her. 

“That didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped it would,” he said, smiling softly. “But there’s always tomorrow. Maybe your ankle will feel better by then.”

Marinette looked at him and wondered what in the name of Thalassa had possessed her to approach this human. Was she so easily swayed by a song and a pretty face, after all? Or was he merely the escape she’d been searching for? 

She couldn’t go back. Not after what she’d done. 

And yet, that was exactly what Agreste intended. Even her escape left her with nowhere to run. And for what? For curiosity? For him?

Adrien read something of her hesitation, and his face fell. “Or we don’t have to do this again if you don’t want. I just thought—”

Marinette gave in to her earlier whim and sank her fingers into his hair. Adrien fell abruptly silent, and she marveled at how even his hair was warm and gentle, as if it welcomed her touch the way she had welcomed his. “I want to know,” she said.

She did not miss the way his eyes fell to her lips, a quiet betrayal he probably did not even realize. Humans never did.

_“Humans are the only creatures in the world who want to be devoured,”_ her sister Lila confided in her once as they lay together watching a passing ship far above. _“That’s why they taste so sweet.”_

The sailors on that ship had made for a sweet feast, indeed.

“Then I’ll help you,” Adrien said. 

Marinette did him a kindness he would likely never understand and pulled away from him entirely. “All right.”

If Adrien was disappointed, he soon forgot it. He cast her a last, sincere smile, happy simply to have her agreement. “You should rest. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Come on, Chat.”

Chat Noir meowed and followed Adrien out. As soon as they were gone, Marinette reached for the bucket of salt water and the couple of fish swimming within. She snatched one deftly in her small hand, squirming and flapping as it gasped for air, and bit down on its tender belly. She ripped the flesh, scales and bones and all, and swallowed greedily. The fish twitched in her bloody fingers, but it lacked the immortal sweetness she craved. 

She devoured half of it before it finally fell still. 

* * *

 

Adrien returned to Marinette’s chambers daily to help her with her walking. She was a quick study, and her strong physique helped with her stamina. By their fourth day practicing, she was stepping slowly but surely with only his hands as an aid to help her balance. Adrien was so pleased with her progress that he’d already begun thinking of what he could teach her next. 

“I think she might enjoy reading,” he said to Nino over lunch in between shifts.

Nino shook his head forlornly. “I think I might enjoy you not humanizing the dangerous sea monster.”

“She’s not like that, Nino.”

Nino set aside his soup spoon and looked pointedly at Adrien. “Of course not, and sharks have sharp teeth because they just really like smiling.” 

“I don’t understand why you won’t even give her a chance. She’s curious and intelligent. She wants to know about humans. It’s why she came looking for us in the first place.”

“Adrien, she came looking for us because she was _hungry_.”

Adrien was at a loss. For as long as he had known Nino, they had been inseparable. He trusted the crew with his life, but he trusted Nino with his heart and soul. Why couldn’t he understand?

“Cap’n won’t let her live, you know that,” Nino said. “Once he gets her to sing and reveal the merling kingdom, he’ll gut her like the fish she is.”

Adrien flushed. “He won’t. He gave me his word that no harm would come to her so long as she cooperates. There’s no reason to hurt her.”

“Right, because this entire misadventure was always rooted in reason. Why do you think he didn’t want you to tell her your last name? Somethin’ ain’t right with this plan, you believe that even if you don’t believe anything else I say.”

“I just want to make her feel less like a prisoner in whatever small way I can,” Adrien said. “She’s as alive as you and me. Surely she deserves to be treated with the same decency and respect as any living creature.”

Nino sighed and put a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “You have a gentle heart, you know.”

“My father is fond of telling me so.”

“Gentle doesn’t mean weak. You’re kind, Adrien. In our world, it’s the hardest thing to be. But it can also get you into trouble if you’re not careful. Have some self-preservation. If not for you, then for me. I lose my beauty sleep worrying about you and that mermaid— _Marinette_.” Nino corrected himself when Adrien shot him a reproving look. 

Adrien set his empty bowl aside and leaned back on his hands. They sat on deck over the stern with a view of the open blue for leagues. “I don’t think she means me harm.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I… I can’t explain it, but I just know.”

Nino groaned. “Please tell me you haven’t fallen for her. By the gods, Adrien, if you fall under her spell, then I’ll send you to the Locker myself. It would be a mercy.”

“I haven’t fallen for her,” Adrien protested. “I won’t. It isn’t like that, only…”

Only her raven hair between his fingers, that paper-thin trust when she’d allowed him to touch her, intimately innocent. Even the way she receded from him in the end, knew when to send him away. As foolish, even dangerous as it was, there was something in her look that wanted trusting. At least a chance. 

“Falling and fucking are not mutually exclusive,” Nino said. 

Adrien shoved him. “I’m _not_ —!”

Nino grinned, and they fell into a short but companionable silence as they admired the blue. 

“You know, there’s an old story Ma used to tell,” Nino said.

“More mermaid tales?” Adrien asked. 

“Not as such. This one concerns a human woman. She was a wife and mother with five children to her name. Every day, her fisherman husband would go out to sea, and every night he would return with the day’s catch. They were poor and always would be, but they were happy. 

“Until the eldest son died at sea, and the old fisherman was without young hands and a strong back to haul the nets. The other children were girls and unsuited for the work, and for a time the family feared they would starve without a livelihood. Their luck changed one morning when a youth appeared at their door with nothing but the clothes on his back. The old fisherman put him to work in exchange for a roof over his head, and soon life went back to normal.”

“Let me guess, the young man had killed the son?” Adrien said. 

“First of all, it’s rude to interrupt. And second, this isn’t that kind of story.” Nino averted his gaze. “It’s much worse.”

Adrien said nothing as he studied Nino’s grim profile and waited for him to finish.

“Soon enough, they welcomed the youth as their son in place of the one they had lost. The family prospered for a time, until the wife became pregnant again.

“It was a stroke of luck. She and the fisherman had longed for another son after their eldest died, but for many months the wife remained barren. The fisherman grew suspicious and began to wonder at the closeness between his wife and the youth. He thought that she had accepted the youth as a son, as he had, but in time the fisherman began to see their love in a different light.

“When he confronted them, the wife confessed everything. If it had only been lust, the fisherman may have forgiven them both their weakness. But the wife loved the youth, and she would forsake her husband and children for him. He had promised to take her to his kingdom far from here, where their child would be raised among royalty and want for nothing. In a rage, the fisherman cast them both out.

“But he soon regretted his decision. He still loved his wife, who had supported him through every hardship. He thought perhaps he could learn to forgive her if only she would agree to return to him. And so, he went after her.”

Here Nino paused. 

“And?” Adrien asked. “Did he find them?”

Nino looked at Adrien, a haunted look in his eyes as if he recalled the story as vividly as his own memory. “He found them wading into the sea. The fisherman shouted for them to stop, fearful that the swell would drown them. But his wife did not cast him the slightest of glances as she dutifully followed the youth beneath the waves. The fisherman waded out as far as he dared, but the waves were strong and beat him back. He shouted her name and searched until his eyes were raw and red with salt, but there was no sign of his wife or the youth. They vanished beneath the waves.”

Adrien looked grim as Nino finished his morbid tale. “So they drowned together. That’s awful.”

Nino frowned deeply. It was a look of frustration Adrien recognized all too well. “No, Adrien. The youth did what he promised the wife he would do and took her to his kingdom, where their forbidden child would be raised among royalty.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you do, but you don’t want to believe it.” Nino got to his feet and dusted off his pants. “Marinette may look human, but she’s not. If you follow this path, Adrien, _you_ will be the one to drown.”

He left, and Adrien was alone with the blue beyond. He watched those deep, dark waters and wondered about the wife from Nino’s story, and what she had seen in their unknowable depths that had made her yearn to drown.

* * *

 

Chloe gazed out over the blue, her knuckles white as a corpse’s as she gripped the railing like she meant to crush it out of existence. The wind favored the _Queen Wasp_  as she sailed east toward Hispaniola, and her crew was in a merry mood now that they were sea-bound once more. 

But Chloe could not share in their good spirits as the secret she had been harboring for some days now weighed upon her like the leaden weight of a limp body. No matter how many times she went over it in her mind, every precaution she had meticulously taken, she could not make sense of it except for the cruel luck of fate that fucked with everyone, highborn or low, man or woman. There was no escaping being human, not matter how well she fooled herself into thinking she could. 

“Cap’n, we’re coming up on Saint-Domingue,” said Kim, approaching from behind. “Few hours yet in this wind.”

“Thank you, Kim,” Chloe said, not looking at him. 

She felt his presence behind her, lingering, but she was too absorbed in her own dark thoughts to pay homage to his. “Listen, I was just wonderin’… Are you all right?”

“What?” Chloe turned and looked at him. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know.” He searched her face, his nose a crooked mess from the beating he’d taken back at _Rena Rouge’s_ a few weeks ago. “You just seem sad lately, is all.”

Chloe was at a loss for words as she regarded him. For one so often dense, Kim had a strange ability to pick up on her subtlest of moods at the most inconvenient times. She blamed their years of sailing together and their past intimacy for his annoying little habit, but for a moment of insanity, she almost wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell someone even though it would likely mean the end. There was only so much a captain could ask of her crew. 

“I suppose I’ve just been thinking about how nothing lasts,” she said. “Maybe that makes me selfish to want it to.”

Kim smiled. “We’re pirates. We’re supposed to be selfish.”

Strangely, she felt a little better hearing it from him. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Cheer up. The crew’s happy, we’ll get Agreste his cut, and then it’s back to the blue. Your ship, your terms. It’ll last as long as you fight for it to.”

Chloe smiled. “Then I’ll fight as long as I can.”

“Damn right. No prey, no pay.”

Some of the other crewmen dropped a rigging they were trying to hoist, and a colorful string of curses followed potent enough to clear even the most stubborn of sinuses. Kim winced. 

“Go,” Chloe said. “Make sure my ship stays in one piece until we get to Hispaniola.”

“Aye, Captain.” Kim winked and left to help the crew. 

Chloe returned to her thoughtful watch over the sea. “My ship, my terms.”

It was a nice sentiment, at least. 

She clung to it as she went in search of Luka later. They would soon be in sight of land, and most of the crew was preparing for port. Luka, however, was not at his post but instead in her quarters staring at the nautical maps on her desk in silence. He didn’t look up when he heard her enter.

“I’ve always been puzzled by maps,” he said, his hands straddling the expanse between the Indian Ocean and the New World. “They capture so much of the world, and yet they reveal so little of what’s in it.”

Chloe approached slowly, like one might a wild animal, dangerously mercurial. “They show us where to go.”

“No.” Luka turned and faced her, his pretty face twisted in frustration. “We do that. You said so yourself.”

Chloe observed him at a distance. She imagined his blood boiling beneath his skin, muscles taut and ready to snap at a moment’s notice, as beholden to his emotions as a ship to the wind. She did not have that luxury, and she was a fool for ever letting herself believe she did. 

“Luka,” she said softly. “There’s something I must tell you.”

He seemed to awaken in that moment and swiftly crossed the room. He loomed over her with his moon-bright eyes, and she knew that he already knew. Had known, perhaps for longer than her. Perhaps the whole time.

_Madness._

“Let’s stay in Hispaniola,” he said, softly as though afraid someone might overhear. “We could buy land, work it, start a different life. We have the gold.”

“No,” Chloe said. “I chose this life.”

“Then choose another.” He took her hands in his. She had never seen him so racked with hope. “Anything at all. We could go somewhere far away if you like, just name the place.”

“No. You can’t ask me that. You know what this means to me. It’s my freedom, Luka.”

He squeezed her hands and struggled to calm himself. “This isn’t about your freedom; it’s about your life. Return to the sea if you must, but not until after you’ve delivered—”

“That’s months from now,” Chloe hissed. “These things take time, you know. I won’t play the lily-white damsel just because you ask me to. I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

In her anger, she was surprised by the power of her confession. She had not dared utter the words aloud for fear of making them irreversible. But it was a child’s fear, and she was no child. She had made her choices, and they had gotten her this far. 

“This is my ship, my crew,” Chloe said. “My terms. I can make it work.”

But Chloe was no fool. A crew would follow their captain as long as there was gold to plunder and blood to spill, but would they follow a mother saddled with a babe? One whose decisions might be influenced by her need to guard her child? To say nothing of when her body would betray her and make it nearly impossible to wield a sword safely, much less strike fear in the hearts of her enemies. 

Never had Chloe thought of her gender as a curse until the day a man made it so. And in her heart of hearts, she knew she could never truly hate him for it. Perhaps that, more than anything, was the most wretched curse of all. 

Luka took her face in his hands and bade her look at him. “I believe you. But it’s not your will that concerns me.”

In the tense moments that passed, realization crept up on Chloe like a snake striking from the grass. And as cathartic as basking in the balm of scorn may have been, she found herself unable to give in to it. He had warned her, after all. And stupid, infatuated fool that she was, she had dared to believe that she could change his mind. 

“Then go,” she said, hating this pernicious despair that twisted her insides with a power she could not remember giving it. “You said so yourself, you have gold enough. Choose the life you truly want, and get the hell off my ship.”

“No, Chloe, you have it wrong.” He reached for her wrist when she tried to leave. “Please, I can explain everything.”

“Forgive me for wanting to be spared your pretty lies, singer,” Chloe snapped. “Believe me, I won’t fall for them again.”

“Chloe, please, I—”

The sharp end of her sword silenced him, but there was no fear in his silver eyes. The point pricked his skin, and blood trickled down his neck under his shirt collar. 

_Just a man who bleeds like all the rest_ , she thought bitterly. 

“Please just go,” she said. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

Luka set his jaw. “Aye, Captain.”

He left, and Chloe sheathed her cutlass with shaking hands and tried to think logically about what she was going to do. Perhaps she just needed some time on solid land to get her bearings. If Luka really wanted to leave, that was his choice. He’d paid his debt to the ship and the crew a hundred times over, and he was as free as the next man to chose his fate and fortune. 

But she couldn’t silence the small, treacherous part of her that wanted him to choose her instead. 

Exhausted, Chloe pulled a bottle of rum from the cabinet and poured herself a glass to clear her head. 

“Cap’n, we’ll be docking soon,” said Alix, poking her head in. “Bit early for that, eh?”

Chloe pulled out another glass and poured. “These days, it’s never too early.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They sipped from their glasses and stood across from each other over the nautical maps. Chloe searched their vast expanse for answers, but Luka had the right of it, after all. They would not tell her where she was bound next. She was reminded then of the first real conversation she’d had with Luka, the first night she’d heard him sing. 

“Alix, do you dream of mermaids?” she asked. 

Alix snorted. “Fish wives? Not as such. But if I ever met one, I bet I could make her dream of me.”

“Agreste told me once many years ago that he saw a mermaid. She sang to him.”

Alix sipped her rum. “Bad luck, that.”

“Mm. Adrien’s mother died that night, to hear him tell it.” 

Alix made a face. “A siren’s song is said to drive a man mad.”

“What about a woman?” Chloe met her gaze across the desk, the vast expanse of the Atlantic between them. 

“Depends on the woman. Madness is chiefly a woman’s sickness, the old men say. It comes in many forms—faith, lust, violence, greed… Even love. Bah. Pick your poison and savor it, I say. Better still if you can charge a fee, or earn a laugh.”

_Is that it?_ Chloe wondered. _A spell of madness?_

She brought the rum to her lips again, but something shook the ship violently and she dropped her glass on the floor. Alix met her gaze, and they were on their feet and rushing to the deck in seconds, swords drawn. A stone’s throw to the north lay the port of Saint-Domingue, but even so close to land there was no quarter to be had as the _Queen Wasp_  rocked again. Crewmen were running around like headless chickens, while Kim was shouting to man the cannons. 

Before Chloe could so much as announce her presence on deck, a possessed school of flying fish leaped from the water and slammed into one of the deckhands struggling with rigging on the port railing. The assault was as violent as it was bizarre. The winged silver fish peppered him with bullet holes, heedless of their own survival, until he lost his balance to gravity and agony, toppled over the railing, and disappeared into the frothing waters below. 

“The cannons!” Kim shouted as he hoisted heavy netting over his big shoulders. “Load them _now_!”

“What the fuck is going on?!” Alix demanded. 

Chloe ran to the railing where the crewman had disappeared over the edge, but the ship was once more jostled. She slipped on the blood and seawater on deck, but caught herself on the railing and looked down. A huge Manta ray smacked the ship’s hull with its broad back before diving to the deep once more. In the waves it kicked up with its massive wings, people bobbed. For a chilling moment, Chloe feared more of her crew had fallen overboard in the bizarre attack, until she realized she did not recognize a single one of them. 

One of them, a woman with midnight hair by the yard, opened her mouth in a shriek and bared her wicked fangs.

“Aahhh!”

One of crewmen screamed when she was pulled to the floor of the deck under the weight of a massive, green moray that coiled about her like a boa constrictor. It sank its serrated teeth into her shoulder, and she thrashed blindly. Alix came in swinging with her sword to gut the beast, killing it. She helped the woman to her feet and shouted for someone to man the fucking goddamned cannons already. 

Someone did, and the first blasts thundered over the fighting. But the attacks kept coming, and they only got worse. Chloe ran to help Kim, who was struggling with some nets to toss overboard and contain the inexplicable aggression from the various sea creatures attempting to jump on deck, when a woman leaped from the water with a shriek and flew at him. 

Chloe had no time to comprehend the impossible lunacy of such an attack. She saw only the creature’s spear coming right for Kim, and she reacted in the only way she knew how. 

Steel met coral as Chloe threw her weight behind the parry and deflected first the spear, and then the creature herself as she impaled upon Chloe’s blade. Fierce claws scraped at Chloe, but she kept moving and shifted all her weight beneath the somersaulting creature. With a final thrust, Chloe tossed her clean off the blade, where she skidded across the deck and thudded against the mast, twitching as her lifeblood drained out of her unnatural carcass. For a brief moment, Chloe could only stare at the grey-scaled monster she had just murdered, and the woman’s face it wore. 

“Fuck me,” Kim said, wide-eyed with terror. “T-That’s a goddamned mermaid!”

The longer Chloe stared at the fallen creature, the more impossible she seemed. Chloe swallowed hard. This was no time to clam up. She offered Kim her hand and hauled them both to their feet. 

“Go oversee the cannons,” Chloe said darkly. “Take out that Manta before it sinks us.”

Kim just nodded, too terrified for words. He sprinted belowdecks to do her bidding. 

“Kill anything that moves!” Chloe shouted to be heard, drawing her pistol and shooting a fat sea lion in the head that had managed to rip apart two of her crewmen. 

But for every creature they buffeted back, more came to replace them. And with them came more merlings, maids and men alike. Alix fended off a purple-tailed merman who’d crawled halfway over the railing. She cut his arm to the bone, nearly severing it, and managed to push him back over the edge. 

The cannons were firing continuously now, and the waters ran red with the blood of the fallen on both sides. But the ship continued to tremble as something, or many somethings, beat the hull mercilessly. If this kept up, the _Queen Wasp_ would end up at the bottom of the sea, her crew drowned. 

“Kagami!”

Chloe whirled at the unfamiliar name in Luka’s familiar voice, and she got a wicked slash to her shoulder for her trouble from the fierce mermaid that leaped out of the water to attack her. Even out of water, the mermaid was perfectly at ease with her black coral trident and a ghastly white tail strong enough to crush bone. She opened her mouth in a hiss and dug her long claws deeper into Chloe’s shoulder, dark eyes narrowed to menacing slits. 

Chloe barely had time to properly fear for her life when out of nowhere, Luka came running and threw his arms around the mermaid—Kagami—and rolled her off Chloe. Kagami thrashed and hit another crewman with her wild tail. He went crashing through the railing over the edge at back-breaking speed, never to be seen again. 

Kagami’s trident clattered across the deck as Luka continued to wrestle with her. Chloe got to her feet, every instinct in her body telling her to protect Luka, but he hissed right back at the mermaid as he rolled them both closer to the railing with all his strength. 

“Luka!” Chloe said, reaching for the trident because she’d lost her cutlass in her fall. 

Both Kagami and Luka turned to look at her, the former spitting her fury and the latter with dead-eyed determination. It was the last sight of them Chloe saw before Luka rolled Kagami over the edge. 

“No!” Chloe screamed as she tore after them. 

Just as she reached the railing, the ship rocked again, more violently than before, and Chloe went flying. She hit the water hard, and in the chaos felt herself sucked deeper in the currents. She swung the merling trident around, frantic, but pierced nothing but water. Salt stung her eyes, but she was too afraid to keep them closed. It was her mistake when she saw another vicious mermaid speeding straight for her. 

Panicking, Chloe thrust her pilfered trident out, which in retrospect was both futile and stupid considering she was drowning and facing down a predator in its natural hunting grounds. But blind survival beat out reason, and she fought back in whatever feeble way was left to her. Just as the mermaid was upon her, a truly enormous shark caught the charging mermaid in his jaws and crunched down. Chloe screamed as her vision swam with red, and she dropped the trident. All she could think of was swimming as far and as fast away from the shark as possible. 

Arms wrapped around her middle and dragged her down, and Chloe lost the last of her held breath as she realized that she was sinking, drowning, dying. She would become food for the flesh-eating merlings children’s fish fables cautioned against. But just as suddenly as the arms had snagged her, they released her and she was once again tossed aimlessly about. In her desperation, she caught sight of her attacker—Kagami, the spectral mermaid that had assaulted her on the ship before—and her defender. 

In her last dregs of held breath, Chloe saw Luka wrestle Kagami off her yet again. He wrapped his powerful, teal-scaled tail around hers and squeezed her in a bone-crushing embrace that drew blood while he fended off her claws and fangs with his own. It was a brutal brawl of strength and speed as they ripped, crushed, and bit at each other in close quarters, until the huge shark circled around again, this time for a bite of Kagami. She parted from Luka and smacked the shark in the jaw with her powerful tail to save herself. Luka in turn smacked her with his tail and sent her reeling. 

Chloe spasmed and swallowed water, clawing at her throat as she lost the last of her strength. Her lungs exploded in agony as she drank the sea and it swallowed her whole. Her vision blurred and her ears popped, and she soon lost all sense of direction as she floated there, limp as a corpse. 

And all she could think in those final, lucid moments as Luka—or the creature that had once been Luka—swam toward her was how much she wished she could have heard his voice one more maddening time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, so begins the monster story part of this fic I’ve been dying to dive in to! Hah, ocean puns. Anyway, shit is going to a dark place from here. Hold on to your shorts, boys and girls. Next time, we’ll have some more definitive answers to What In The Everloving Hell Is Going On.
> 
> Also, I know some of these aquatic creatures are not found in Caribbean waters. But these are merlings and they’re magical, so let’s just assume their fishy familiars/Pokémon would come to them pretty much wherever they go.
> 
> Last also, check out this breathtaking concept art that helped inspire me for the merling kingdom in this fic! Idk how people have the incredible talent to create this stuff but I'm so fucking glad they do. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KYNg9


	6. Medusa

Chloe was dead.

Funny, how quickly it happened. How easily. Life really was so fragile. She could feel the exact instant it happened. No, that wasn’t quite right. To die was to take action, to run through a blade or leap from a cliff. Drowning was passive—a waiting, a slipping. Her life slipped through her lips, tiny bubbles carrying the last of her breath as if a cold hand had reached down her throat and pulled it out screaming. She felt the very moment it left her and death flooded the hollow it left behind.

Chloe breathed it in, for there was nothing else to breathe. It ripped through her, filled her veins to bulging, but she could no longer fight back. Why fight the very thing filling what was empty? Ridiculous thought, that…

Until she realized she was having conscious thoughts at all. She snapped her eyes open and grasped her throat. The explosive agony in her lungs ebbed with every unnatural breath of water she sucked in. Her eyes no longer stung, and her vision cleared. The haze of the water parted like a curtain as the world came into stark, unfamiliar focus. 

_I’m dreaming,_ she thought. 

Drowning in a dream. 

There were worse ways to die.

_No, there are not._

Luka swam to her, shouting in a voice like breaking waves, unintelligible. But Chloe was dead in the water, ungainly and slow without fins and a tail and the power to speak. The ocean filled every part of her, plummeting. 

He caught her in his arms, and she was moving faster than she ever had before. Her legs flapped uselessly behind her, buffeted by his powerful tail. Merlings and their familiars screeched as they kept up their attack. Kagami and the shark that had helped Luka were nowhere to be seen in the blue. The _Queen Wasp_  dropped cannon balls and crewmen and pieces of itself. 

_No_ , Chloe thought as she watched her freedom, her life sink to the bottom of the sea. 

“No!”

But the word was not a word at all upon her cold, blue lips, and she gagged again. This agony, it was too much. She thrashed in his grip, unable to think straight as she watched her crew, her ship break beneath the waves to be devoured. Luka hissed at her in that breaking, crashing voice she did not know, and she struggled harder. It was not to be. 

He snaked his bladed fingers through her hair, held her still, and pressed a suffocating kiss to her mouth. The moment his lips touched hers, the static screaming in her ears transformed into real screaming.

“Take out the cannons!” shouted a woman, far off. 

“With what? They killed our Manta!”

“Chloe!” Luka said. “Look at me!”

Chloe looked at him, and for the first time since she’d fallen overboard after him, she saw clearly. “You…”

She clutched her throat in fright at the sound of her own drowned voice, so clear now. Luka held her close. His silver eyes caught the faintest of sunlight, painfully piercing. Small fangs protruded over his bottom lip, and teal scales wended in aimless paths over his bare chest like paint smears. Small fins fluttered where his ears should have been as he breathed.

“Look at me,” he said again. 

Chloe heaved a heavy, drowning breath and wished she could weep, but the sea stole even her tears. “Luka?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling her closer. “I’m here with you. Both of you.”

He pressed his hand over her navel, but Chloe did not understand. 

“How… How is this possible?”

“There’s no time. Listen to me, you have to get to land and stay there. Do you understand? You must get out of the water and stay away, or they’ll take you.”

“Take me where? I don’t understand,” Chloe shook her head. “You’re a _merman_ , and I’m…”

“You said before that there’s always a choice.” He cupped her cheek. “So I choose you.”

“Luka!” shouted a woman. “How _dare you_!”

Luka caught sight of something behind Chloe and bared his fangs. He turned to shield her. “Save yourself and our child, and don’t look back. I’ll protect you as long as I can.”

Chloe did not understand anything, except that he was leaving her when she had already lost everything else. “No, wait!”

But he was already gone, and not a moment too soon. Kagami was back, and she had two more merlings with her. 

“Traitor!” Kagami spat as she brandished a Narwhale tooth saber. “That _Medusa_ belongs to _me_!”

The other two merlings surrounded Luka, but the shark was back, careless of the teeth he had lost to Kagami’s tail. One of the enemy merlings nearly lost a chunk of his tail fin to the beast. 

“Chloe, go!” Luka shouted as he routed Kagami and blocked her from pursuing. 

Chloe, helpless in the water, struggled to paddle away as quickly as she could. The _Queen Wasp_ ’s cannons fired in crescendo, but as much as she longed to go back and defend her ship and her crew, she knew it was suicide. She could not waste the chance Luka had given her, if not for herself then for him. 

The sounds of battle reached her through the vacuum tide, and as she tumbled through the surf, she caught glimpses of merlings in her wake. They moved impossibly fast driven by their powerful tails, blades and tridents glinting in the filtered sunlight. Kagami caught Luka with her blade, and though he managed to kick her off, a cloud of blood burst as he beat his tail. Another merman grappled with him as he tried to escape Kagami, pinning him. 

“No!” Chloe screamed as the current sucked her down toward the sharp coral reef. 

But there was nothing she could do. She hit the coral hard, and her back burst with pain where the jagged edges cut her through her clothes. She scrambled for a handhold to right herself and looked up just in time to see another mermaid coming right for her. Chloe screamed and let go of her handhold, but the mermaid was upon her and digging sharp claws into her leg. 

Chloe kicked wildly and grabbed the mermaid’s long, purple hair. She pulled with all her might and earned a wicked scream for her trouble. It was enough to shake the creature off, and Chloe kicked off the bottom of the reef toward the surface. She did not get far when the mermaid grabbed her ankle and yanked her back down. In the ensuing struggle, Chloe hit her head on coral and saw stars. Vaguely, she registered movement. The mermaid was dragging her back to the deep, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. 

Drifting in and out of consciousness, she was slow to realize something had made the mermaid let her go, and for a moment she was adrift in the blue, weightless. 

_Luka…_

Where had he gone? Was he dead? Even in her half-aware state, the thought filled her with a deep and lonely despair. 

_“What hills, what hills are those, my love  
That are so dark and low?”_

She could hear the memory of his voice, melancholy honey, all around her. Perhaps she would truly die like this, lost at sea as she always knew she would. Perhaps they both would.

_“Those are the hills of Hell, my love  
Where you and I must go.”_

“Not yet, please,” she muttered, forcing her eyes open. Above, the sun shone bright, far away. 

Silken hands took hers and wrapped her around him. Chloe obliged and held him close, held on as he spun her around and brought her higher, out of the deep. Yet it was not Luka who saved her, but his shark familiar. 

Faster and faster the shark swam with Chloe holding on as best she could. Someone shrieked behind her, but the voice was soon lost to the bubbles and the deep. Reef fish fled from her path, and the bottom sank away until there was nowhere left to sink. The waves broke around her, and she tasted air as if for the first time. Gagging, Chloe lost her hold on the shark and tumbled through the surf to the shallows. The sunlight was searing bright, the sand painfully coarse between her fingers, and there was nobody here to help her anymore. 

Sputtering, Chloe clutched her bleeding head and caught a glimpse of the _Queen Wasp_  in the harbor, smoking and sinking under the continued assault by merlings and their familiars. She had made it safely to land, she and the child she carried. Tears fell down her cheeks and returned to the sea as a mad, desperate part of her longed to do. Exhausted and injured, Chloe slumped and soon lost consciousness.

* * *

 

Gabriel sat up in bed, naked save for the thin sheet pooled in his lap. He turned the merling queen’s black scale over in his hands, an old habit. When the light hit it just right, it glimmered a deep crimson, as though it had eaten the blood of creatures. Filthy, beautiful thing.

A glance out the window told him is was nearly dawn. The _Hawk Moth_ would make port soon. He was not glad of it, but a resupply was necessary before he went hunting for the merling kingdom. Capturing the mermaid had taken longer than he had anticipated. 

The scale was smooth to the touch, like polished glass, but its edge was sharp enough to slice a man open. Even a thousand years old, it was as pristine and sturdy as the day Gabriel’s ancestor had stolen it from the one who had cursed him, an eternal reminder that myths and monsters were real, that they would never forget. 

Neither would Gabriel. 

The sounds of the crew waking up to start the day with a lively shanty soon reached him, and he returned the scale to the bedside drawer. Beside him, Nathalie still slept, her raven hair splayed about her head like an ink spill. His eyes swept over her nude form, the thin sheet leaving little to the imagination. He had the sudden urge to drag his fingers through her hair, perhaps grab a fistful of it, expose her throat as he’d done last night. 

But he refrained, as he often did. The need was sated, and there was no reason to take more than was absolutely required. He had long ago learned the dangers of indulgence. 

She stirred as he rose. “Gabriel…”

“It’s barely dawn,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

He pulled on his pants. Nathalie rolled over. “Is there no time?”

Despite his better judgment, he spared her a look. Disheveled and sleepy, she was a dream to look upon. A part of him wanted nothing more than to forget the time, forget it all, and crawl back in bed with her. She would accept him, he knew. This had been her idea in the beginning, and he a willing participant. She had been with him since the day he had lost everything that mattered and forsook the rest. If anyone deserved his time, it was her. But that was why he could never, ever give it. Not to her.

_Especially not to her._

“No,” he said softly. Emilie’s painting hung behind his desk, golden and sad. “No,” he said again, more firmly. 

Nathalie simply nodded. She of all people knew the danger of him. But that only made every morning leaving her harder. 

“Orders?” she asked, getting up and preparing for the day. 

Gabriel could not help but watch her move. Pale stretch marks painted a history of her life, of the child she had given up and the one she had raised in its place. There was a hardened sort of sorrow in her eyes, the look of one resigned to grief and yet empowered by its familiarity. She was a woman who had known hardship and become stronger not in spite of it, but because of it. There was almost nothing of the mousy, reticent girl she had been when she had appeared before him in her hour of need. 

“I want to be underway as soon as possible,” Gabriel said. 

Nathalie had pulled on her breeches and a loose shirt, and she was cinching a belt snugly around her waist. “Yes, sir. I’ll oversee the resupply myself.”

She transformed before his very eyes. Rigid as a plank, Nathalie nodded curtly and excused herself quietly from his chambers to get to work. Gabriel slumped against his desk when she was gone and glanced at Emilie’s portrait. He was filled with a sudden but familiar shame—shame at his weakness, at his guilt, at his very existence. 

“I have not forgotten you, my love,” he said. 

And he never would. For so long as the merling queen drew breath, he would never forget Emilie and her place in his heart. Even if he could not remember her voice, or recall her touch, or smell her hair. Even if she was nothing more than an oil canvas, he would never forget her or the fate she had suffered. 

There could be room in his cursed heart for only one. He owed it to Emilie, and he owed it to Nathalie, too.

* * *

 

Adrien stayed behind on the _Hawk Moth_ as other crew members set out to barter for goods for the long journey at sea to the merling kingdom. Nathalie had him overseeing inventory and the Gorilla overseeing him. 

He longed to spend the time with Marinette, but he dared not. Not while the Gorilla was watching—not while his father was watching through him thanks to the Amethyst’s power. 

Adrien remembered the day Gabriel had acquired the Amethyst. Taken off the corpse of a rival pirate captain after a bloody battle at sea when Adrien was just a boy, Gabriel had kept the gem as a spoil. It was not until later, when the simple-minded ship’s cook nicked himself on the uncut stone by mistake and succumbed to an obeisant trance that Gabriel discovered the Amethyst’s true power, and why the rival captain had laid down his life to keep it for himself. 

The gentle giant of a cook was transformed into Gabriel’s strongest crewman that day and given the name Gorilla. Later came the Darkblade, and any day could welcome a third if the fancy struck the captain. Akumas, Gabriel called them. Unfailingly obedient, they were naught but slaves to their master’s whim. They felt no pain, cried no tears, and wanted nothing for themselves beyond the next order. The Amethyst and the threat of akumatization helped Gabriel rise in power among the pirate folk and win his very own armada. A percentage of their plunder and an oath of aid in times of war were a small price to pay for rival captains’ freedom considering the alternative.

So long as Gabriel retained his cutlass, the handle of which was crafted to hold the Amethyst, he retained complete control over his akumas. And as long as Gabriel controlled his akumas, there was nothing he did not see. 

Adrien dutifully helped some of the crewmen load two she-goats and a wire cage full of chickens on deck, while the Gorilla watched from his post at Marinette’s door. The mermaid was walking well enough on her own now, such that Gabriel had ordered her door remain locked at all times lest she attempt to escape, though Adrien knew such a scenario was as unlikely as it was futile. Even if Marinette did manage to slip out of her room, the crew would be on her in seconds before she could hope to reach the edge of the ship. 

A commotion on the quay drew shouts and stomping. Adrien went to investigate and was surprised to spot a very familiar blonde. 

“Get out of my way,” Chloe snapped at two of the crewmen. “I have to see Captain Agreste. It’s urgent.”

“Chloe!” Adrien shouted, waving. 

Familiar blue eyes found his, but they were wide with fear like he had never seen them before. She was wounded and wearing a lady’s dress, of all the things, but strangest of all were her cutlass and pistols—they were conspicuously absent from her person. She wielded only a thin dagger, which she currently brandished at the two deckhands in her way. 

“Adrien,” she said, like she had gone years without seeing a familiar face until this moment. “I have to board. Tell them.”

Adrien was happy to oblige. “That’s Captain Bourgeois of the _Queen Wasp_. Let her pass.”

“Captain, eh?” said one of the deckhands, leering. “I’ll let ya be my cap’n for a sweet night if ya like.”

“I don’t allow eunuchs in my crew,” Chloe pressed the knife to the man’s groin. 

Steel spoke louder than words in the end, and the crewman let her pass. Adrien was delighted to see her after so many months apart, but her attire and presence told him that there was nothing delightful about her sudden appearance here. 

“Chlo, you’re hurt. Where’s your crew? Why’re you dressed like that?” Adrien peppered her with questions as he herded her on deck and signaled to Nino to join them lest any of the other newer deckhands get the wrong idea about her. 

“That story’s as long as it is maddening. I need to see Gabriel—where is he?”

“Cap’n’s gone ashore for provisions,” Nino said, eyeing Chloe warily.

“Shit. We can’t just stay moored here.” She moved to the railing and peered out to sea.

“Chlo, slow down,” Adrien said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

There was a look in her eyes that unsettled Adrien deeply. The Chloe he had grown up with was a confident woman who always pushed herself hard in order to be taken seriously in a world that did not forgive her gender. Her initiative had earned her a ship of her own and the title of captain even before Adrien. To see her so visibly shaken filled Adrien with a deep sense of foreboding. Something had happened to her, something terrible. 

“Say, where _is_ the _Queen Wasp_?” Nino asked. “I don’t see her in the harbor.”

“So you don’t know?” Chloe said. 

“Know what? We just arrived in Saint-Domingue a couple hours ago,” Adrien said. 

Chloe looked between Adrien and Nino like she did not see them at all. “My ship is sunk, along with my crew and all the treasure she carried.”

“What? But how? When did this happen?”

“Days ago.”

“Only you survived?” Nino asked. 

“That I know of. The swim to shore wasn’t far.”

It took Adrien a moment to comprehend the meaning behind her words. “Wait… You mean, the _Queen Wasp_  sank in these waters? But that’s… I don’t understand. Who would attack you so close to port? They could never expect to escape without consequences.”

“They could, and they did.”

“Cap’n will be sendin’ the armada after them,” Nino said darkly. 

And he was right. No one, not even the royal Navy, would have the gall to launch such an ostentatious attack in a pirate-controlled port on a ship in Gabriel Agreste’s armada. It was suicide. 

“Then he’ll be sending it to the bottom of the sea,” Chloe said.

“What’s at the bottom of the sea?” Adrien asked. 

“The merlings, so the stories say.” Chloe clutched her dagger tighter. “That’s why I need to speak to your father. The merlings—they took someone from me. I have to get him back, and if I have to kill them all to do it, then so be it.”

* * *

 

Marinette knew the pirates had docked at port. She could feel the difference in the floor beneath her feet, the staccato rhythm of the waves closer to land jerky and abrupt compared to the smooth, languorous lull of the open ocean. Adrien did not come to her all day and all night, but the big one stood outside her door, unmoving. She could smell him through the hinges. He smelled like dead things. She could not bear to linger near the door for long. 

Even so, she practiced her steps, just as Adrien had taught her. Back and forth across the room she paced until her legs were sore. If she stood on her bed, she could just barely peek out the high window and see the sky and ship’s sails, blue backing violet. The human settlement lay beyond those, and she could just make out the people in the streets walking, some running, some jumping. Marinette wondered if she might run, too, but the space was limited. Even so, she tried it. 

The first time, she fell after just two steps and badly bruised her knee. But she got up and tried again. If humans could run, then so would she. 

She almost caught a brief glimpse of the deck when the Gorilla opened the door to give her a fresh bucket of fish, but he closed it swiftly and left her in the dark once more. 

Marinette lay on her bed, her legs tired from practicing walking and running and jumping, and let her eyes drift close. In her mind, she saw her sisters, her brothers, and her queen mother who protected them all. She wondered what they were doing now, if they missed her, if they searched for her. A selfish, weak part of her wished they were, but a stronger part of her hoped they would never find her. To be captured by humans was humiliating, but forgivable; what Marinette had done was not. 

She touched the Ruby at her throat and sang softly. 

_“Heavy the beat of the weary waves,_  
_Falling, falling, o’er and o’er upon the rocky shore_  
_When he comes no more, alas, no more.”_

The Ruby did not speak to her as it had the night she had taken it. She wished more than anything that it would tell her why—why her? Why here? If it meant giving up the only life and family she had ever known, was it worth it? 

“ _Mrow_ ,” meowed Chat Noir, now perched in the window and watching her. 

Marinette peered at the cat, wondering if he had come for her song just as the fishes would have. Lila claimed that there was no creature in the world that could resist a merling’s proper song, not even the tides. 

“ _Mrow_ ,” Chat Noir meowed again. 

“Go and fetch your master,” Marinette said. “At least he is brave enough to come near me.”

The cat hopped down from the window then, likely bored. 

But it was days before Adrien came, and they were already back at sea. Marinette watched at the window as the _Hawk Moth_ sailed away from port, and she was not sorry to see it shrink in the distance. 

He knocked on her door late that night, and she had not realized just how much she had longed to hear that telltale tapping until now. She was on her feet in anticipation as he let himself in, and she had to stop herself from meeting him at the door like some pining maid. But Marinette had never felt lonely when she had her sisters and brothers. There was always someone around to swim with, to explore with, to get in to mischief with. Now, there was only Adrien. 

“Marinette,” Adrien said, hushed. 

“Adrien, please come in,” Marinette said, unable to keep the smile from her voice. Perhaps he had brought her a book. Last time, he had promised to teach her how to read human language if she was interested—she was very interested. 

He approached her, but he did not lock the door behind him. Marinette was too relieved to see him to care. He reached for her hand, and she reached back. His fingers were warm in hers, as they always were. At first, Marinette had been reluctant to allow him to touch her at all. But as he taught her to walk and she learned to trust his guidance, she learned to trust him a little, too. Foolish human or no, he believed his words when he said he meant her no harm. Unexpectedly, Marinette had come to like the feel of his hands in hers, the gravity of his presence before her, and his kind smile. 

But all her trust and relief evaporated when his scent finally reached her, sharp and dreadfully familiar. She recoiled and bared her teeth. 

“Marinette, what’s the matter?” he asked. 

She narrowed her eyes, wondering for a moment if she could be mistaken. But when he reached for her, she smelled it again and knew. There was no mistaking that scent. 

“Another,” she spat. “You have stolen another of my kind.”

“What? How could you think—”

“You hunt my kind, like you hunted me!” Marinette could not believe how naïve she had been. How could she have given even a shred of her trust to this human? Mother was right—she was _always_ right. And they were all the same, after all. 

“No, you have it wrong. Please, let me explain.” This time he did not approach her, but instead reached for the door. 

This was it, then. He was leading her to her doom. They would rip the Ruby from her throat and force her reversion. They would flay her tail for its scales, take her fangs, her eyes, even her heart. The stories Lila told about the wicked ways of men used to scare her as a girl, but Marinette believed she had outgrown them. Not so now, as she faced her own mortality in Adrien’s beautiful, green eyes. 

But when he opened the door, it was not men with swords in hand waiting for her, but a woman dressed like a man. Her blue eyes were tired but alert as she stared back at Marinette. And then, the smell hit Marinette with a physical force, and she understood everything. 

“Marinette, please,” Adrien said. “No one is hunting anyone. I gave you my word that I would never harm you. I’ll never go back on it, I swear.”

But Marinette was not listening as she approached the woman just standing there faster than anyone could have anticipated, least of all the woman. She gasped and reached for her cutlass, but Marinette pressed one palm to her stomach and the other over the hilt of her sword. Wordless, the women locked gazes as a silent, dreadful understanding passed between them. 

“ _Medusa_ ,” Marinette said. 

“What did you just call me?” the woman demanded, pushing Marinette’s hands away. 

Adrien hastily introduced the woman—Chloe—and explained that she had lost her ship and her crew to merlings. They thought Marinette could help answer some questions for them. 

“Fuck me,” Chloe said. She kept her hand firmly on the hilt of her cutlass. “You’re really one of them? Just like Luka.”

“Luka?” Marinette said. “So she is his… But how do you still remain here? They should have come for you.”

Chloe bared her teeth. “They did, but Luka saved me. Wait, do you know him? They took him away, and I have to find him.”

Adrien got in between them. “Just a minute, I’m not understanding anything either of you is saying. What’s going on?”

Marinette frowned. “Your woman is with child. You did not know?”

Adrien blushed. “M-My what? No, that’s not—Chloe and I are childhood friends, like siblings! …Wait, _child_?” He turned on Chloe, but she looked away stubbornly. 

“Yes, I can smell.” Marinette sniffed Chloe to confirm, but there was no mistaking. “She carries a merling child.”

“Chlo, why didn’t you tell me? I thought you wanted to meet Marinette because you wanted to know about that man the merlings took.”

“I did,” Chloe interrupted. “I do. But he’s… He’s—”

“Like me,” Marinette said. “Luka… He is true, loyal. My sister Kagami chose him as consort because of this.”

“Kagami.” Chloe spat the name like a curse. “She’s one of the mermaids who attacked my ship. She attacked Luka, too. She’s your _sister_?” 

She drew her cutlass, and Marinette hissed. Adrien was between them again, his own sword drawn against Chloe’s as he shielded Marinette with his body. 

“Fuck this,” Chloe said. “Get out of my way.”

“Not a chance,” Adrien said. “Put that away. Marinette isn’t your enemy. You promised you just wanted to talk to her.”

“Talk?! She just called the bitch who led the attack on my crew her sister!” There were tears in Chloe’s eyes. “How can you stand there and defend her?”

“Because Marinette had nothing to do with it. She’s been with me the whole time.”

“So what? How can you make excuses for her after what her kind did me? A, I’m _pregnant_ , for fuck’s sake. Everything in my life has gone to complete shit because of her kind!”

“You’re alive, aren’t you? And I’m helping you—we both are. You can’t judge an entire group based on the actions of a few. What about Luka?”

Chloe lowered her weapon a bit. “That’s not the same. He saved my life.”

“And you really think he did that so you could turn around and put it in danger all over again starting a fight like this? Come on, Chlo. I know you better than that.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me, or I _will_ kill you.”

“Then do it. Cut me down so you can get to Marinette. Go ahead.”

Marinette did not understand what was happening. Why was Adrien goading this woman? Did he not just claim they were like brother and sister? Did family mean so little to humans? If Chloe did cut him down, she would find no easy opponent in Marinette. Even without her fangs and tail, she was as competent a fighter as any. Kagami had trained her in the art of the trident and the spear alike. Adrien’s interference was both nonsensical and superfluous. And yet, she could not say why, but she admired his courage, however foolish. To stand up to one’s sister was something not even Marinette had ever been able to do.

“Goddamnit, A!” Chloe said. “Why would you defend her?”

“Because she’s good,” Adrien said. “I don’t care who her sister is. Marinette is good.”

“You’re so fucking naïve.”

“Maybe, but you’re reckless. You always have been.” He lowered his weapon and extended his hand. “Please, Chlo. Let me help you. Whatever you need, anything at all, just let me help.”

Chloe’s hand shook as she held back her tears, but eventually she relented and lowered her sword. “Damnit.”

Adrien deemed it safe to move, and Marinette was once again face to face with Chloe. “Okay, can we try this one more time from the beginning?” he asked.

Marinette watched Chloe carefully. The other woman placed a hand over her stomach, but there was a lost look in her eyes. She was adrift and sinking—Marinette knew that look all too well, having seen it in her own eyes so many times before stealing the Ruby and venturing to the surface alone. 

_Humans…_

Why did Mother hate them so? Marinette had risked everything to find out. Perhaps the answer began here, with Chloe and Adrien. 

“ _Medusa_ ,” Marinette said. 

“You mentioned that before,” Adrien said. “What does it mean?”

“ _Medusa_ is her, a woman taken by the sea. You did not choose it, but now you are drowning. You and your child, you are not welcome in the human world, so to the sea you must return and give up what can never be yours.”

Chloe clutched her belly. “My child… That’s why they attacked my ship? Because…because they wanted my unborn child?”

“It is so,” Marinette said. “My brothers, they are like Father, closer to humans than us. They walk among you, like my sisters cannot. We are warriors married to the sea, not mothers like your kind. So we take.”

Chloe was pale. 

“You mean, mermen can become human and lie with women, and their children are…” Adrien trailed off. “Nino’s story…”

“They will take you, too,” Marinette said. “Down to the deep, and they will take the child.”

“The deep? But Chloe’s human. They would kill her?”

Marinette shook her head. “Not until the child is born.”

Chloe was strangely silent, and Marinette peered at her. 

“Ah, you already know,” Marinette said.

“Know what?” Adrien asked. 

“I could breathe underwater,” Chloe said, barely a whisper.

Marinette nodded. “The child is of the sea. She will not let her mother die in its embrace.” 

“I could hear them, the merlings. It was like screaming and bubbles before, but then Luka…” She touched her lips.

Marinette narrowed her eyes. “Luka gave you the kiss? He would not do this.”

“He did,” Chloe insisted. “Underwater, I could hear them, their voices. I could hear everything as clearly as I hear you now.”

Marinette did not understand. It was forbidden to give a human knowledge of the merling language. They only took from humans, as Marinette had taken from Adrien. If Luka had instead given, then he must have had a good reason. 

Either that, or he was a traitor. 

_Like me._

Marinette averted her gaze. 

“He told me to get to land, that they would come back for me,” Chloe said. 

_Luka, what are you doing? They’ll kill you for this,_ Marinette thought. 

Why would he choose to help a human over his own kind? Over his consort? Kagami was the keeper of his rank and status in the merling kingdom. To be chosen as consort to one of the queen mother’s three favored daughters was the highest honor. His duty was to provide Kagami with a merling child. To that end, he was to seek out a beautiful, healthy human, couple with her, and spirit her down to the depths. A girl child would seal his place among the elites, but even a boy could bring honor if he grew to have an enchanting voice. Why would Luka throw all that away? 

Why would he do it for a human woman, of all the things? 

“They will come for you,” Marinette said. “They will never stop, until the child is born.”

“I don’t care about any of that. Just tell me where they took Luka. I have to find him.”

Marinette looked at Adrien, then back at Chloe. She touched the Ruby at her throat and wondered again how she had ended up in this mess.

_Maybe you knew…_

The Ruby hummed with warmth beneath her fingertips. 

“Marinette?” Adrien said. 

“Home,” Marinette said. “They will take him home, to the merling kingdom. And there, they will kill him.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the month-long hiatus here. I got busy with work for a bit, then got sucked in to RE:2 and KH3. I’m back to writing ML fic now. I’m currently vacationing in tropical beach area, so the inspiration has been nonstop for this fic!
> 
> Also, quick plug: I’ve started another multi-chapter ML fic called Look Me In The Stars, which I think any reader who enjoys my fics would like! It’s a more traditional fic with the Miraculous heroes saving Paris, but AU enough to let me do whatever I want. Check it out if you like my writing. :)


	7. Even Lovers Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stop what you’re doing and check out this STUNNING fanart the incredibly talented **secretie** did featuring Chloe and mer!Luka. I am speechless, and she is a rockstar. This update is coming at you sooner than planned because of her!
> 
> http://secretie.tumblr.com/post/182951704499/oh-i-could-have-married-the-kings-daughter-dear
> 
> Oh, and also, time for some long awaited pelagic magic…
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains mature sexual content. Please read at your own discretion. Look for the ♕ symbol to skip it if you prefer. (But I think we all know you sinners aren’t skipping shit.) 😎

Chloe’s presence on the _Hawk Moth_ was more disruptive than Adrien thought possible. Aside from Nathalie, Gabriel’s crew was entirely male and unused to a woman walking freely among them, captain or no. To them, she was just the same as any other woman so long as she had neither ship nor crew to add weight to her name. Before she’d been captain, she’d been just a scrawny girl invisible to the gaze of men. Now…

“Ah, fuck!” yelped one of the crewmen as he clutched his bloody hand. “Mad bitch.”

Chloe withdrew her dagger from the man’s palm, wiped the blood on her jerkin, and sliced a hard chunk of bread with the blade for her mess plate. “I did warn you what would happen if you touched me while I’m eating.” She bit a chunk of bread and chewed savagely, daring him to give her an excuse to draw her cutlass and get serious. 

He looked like he might rise to her challenge until Gabriel himself emerged from the privy, one casual hand on the hilt of his sword. The Amethyst glinted in a passing shaft of sunlight. Gabriel took one look at the crewman’s bloody hand, and then his eyes fell to Chloe, who ignored him entirely. 

“Making friends already, Miss Bourgeois,” he said. 

“You know me, sir, always the life of the party,” Chloe said.

“Indeed.”

The crewmen muttered low greetings to their captain as he surveyed them with an imperious stare. 

“Perhaps you could be a little more discreet with your…attentions…while you’re a guest on my ship,” Gabriel said. 

Chloe stiffened. “As you say, Captain.”

Adrien approached Chloe’s table and set down his bowl to eat with her, Nino in (reluctant) tow. “Father,” he greeted. 

Gabriel eyed Adrien and then Nino. He gave nothing of his thoughts away. “Adrien, Mr. Lahiffe.”

“Cap’n,” Nino mumbled. 

Gabriel lingered a moment as the three of them faced him in a kind of solidarity, though he seemed not to notice or care. He took his leave, but paused on the steps to the deck. “By the way, how are you getting on with the creature?”

Adrien bristled. “She has a name.”

Chloe shot him a warning look, and Gabriel watched him carefully. 

“Pray tell,” Gabriel said. 

Adrien hesitated. It was only a name, and yet she had given it to him, no one else. Adrien was not sure if it meant anything, but he wanted to believe it did. There was power in a name, but none so powerful as Gabriel Agreste’s. “Marinette,” he relented. 

“Marinette… A strong name.”

Adrien did not know what to say to that, or the unreadable expression on Gabriel’s impassive face. 

“Carry on, then.” Gabriel disappeared up the stairs and left them to their lunch.

“Adrien, what the hell,” Nino hissed. 

“What?”

Chloe snorted. “You’re as hopeless as you ever were.”

“Worse,” Nino said. 

“What?” Adrien said. “What’s the problem now?”

“You are, if you’re not careful,” Chloe said. 

“Too late,” Nino said gravely. “I tried to warn him, but it’s no use.”

“You clearly haven’t tried threatening him.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Adrien said. 

Chloe angled her dagger at his throat and held his gaze. “Then you’ll hear me loud and clear when I tell you this. Forget about Marinette before you lose your head, literally.”

“Me? What about you?” He glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “You’re chasing the merman who impregnated you to his underwater prison. If anyone is going to lose a head—”

“It will be him, if the gods are good,” Nino interrupted. He clutched a carved pendant around his neck as if for protection. 

Chloe angled her dagger at Nino next. “What was that?”

Adrien got in between them before a fight could break out. “Everyone, just settle down, please. No one is losing their head.”

Nino slumped into the seat across from Adrien and Chloe, exhausted. “If you ask me, you’re both mad. Have you thought at all about what you’re doin’? What it truly means?”

“Nino,” Adrien said.

“No, Adrien, it needs to be said. The merlings… They’re not like us. They literally _eat people_. Yes, even Marinette, and you’re foolin’ yourself if you think otherwise. And you.” He turned to Chloe. “What will you do when we get to the merling kingdom? Dive down to the deep to save your lover? How far do you think you’ll make it before they rip you apart?”

Adrien held his tongue, unable to think of anything to say to that. 

“Ma told me stories about men and women lured to the deep to be devoured. A part of me always believed ‘em, but that’s all they ever were: stories. Now, I see them happening with my own eyes, and I’m afraid. _You_ should be afraid. These stories all end the same way, in violent, bloody death. Forgive me, but I don’t want that for you.”

In all the years Adrien had known him, Nino had always held a healthy respect for sea and its cruel mysteries that was easily lost on others. Superstition, the other sailors called it. The nonsensical fears of an ignorant islander. Adrien had as much respect for the sea and its myriad dangers as the next sailor, but in truth he had never given much weight to fantastical tales of magic and merlings despite his father’s quiet obsession. Faith so often entered the soul only after the loss of something precious to make room for it. He had never known his mother and did not feel her loss as Gabriel did.

But Nino believed, and with each passing day and every new revelation, Adrien found it increasingly harder not to listen. And yet, he was not ready for this story to end. It had hardly even begun.

Chloe rose from her seat abruptly with a muttered excuse Adrien barely heard. She passed Armand on her way to the deck, but he did not so much as look at her. 

“Looks like I’m wanted,” Adrien said, getting up to join Armand for a round with the sword. 

Nino caught his wrist. “Adrien.”

“I heard you, Nino. But this isn’t one of your stories; it’s my life. My choice.”

Nino released him, a bewildered look in his amber eyes, and Adrien followed Armand out.

* * *

 

Chloe climbed to the crow’s nest, knowing no one would follow her up here. The _Hawk Moth_ ’s violet sails swelled with the wind that ferried her east to the open ocean, to the merling kingdom. At least, that was what Gabriel would have her believe. 

She had expected anger when she told him about the merlings’ attack on her own ship and crew and the loss of his cut of the _León_ treasure, but what he gave her was so much worse. 

_“No ship, no crew, and no payment. It seems all you are is just a woman after all, Miss Bourgeois. I had hoped you would last a little longer than this. More fool me.”_

Chloe’s blood boiled at his flippant dismissal even now, but there was nothing she could do. He was right, after all. Without the _Queen Wasp_ , she was just Chloe Bourgeois, the daughter of a disgraced former governor and a dead harlot. Her mother’s silver secrets offered no guidance in this situation. Even Alix and Kim were gone, food for the merlings no doubt. She was on her own. 

The sea was a blue wasteland that stretched for leagues as far as the eye could see. Nary a wave crested upon its barren surface, and no signs of life made their presence known. Chloe had often retreated to this highest point on this very ship in her youth, as much to escape the oppressive male camaraderie as to feast her eyes on the world at her feet. Someday, this view would be hers, she would think to herself. Someday, she would be free. 

_“Freedom… Is that the promise of a life at sea?”_

Chloe closed her eyes and felt the wind in her bangs beneath the brim of her hat. She tasted salt on the breeze, cold and sharp. She heard Luka’s voice, sad and distant, as he searched the empty blue by the light of the moon. 

“There are no promises, only choices,” she said. 

His arms encircled hers, and she felt his drumming heart at her back. 

_“I choose you,”_ he whispered. 

His voice was a tremor she felt down her back, in her finger tips, upon her lips. Transported, she saw him before her in the depths of the blue, misted in magic and eyes moon-bright. She sucked in a breath and drank the ocean. 

“I want you to stay,” she said. 

She dreamed his smile upon her neck, teeth to skin, and a drowning kiss that opened her mind and body to a world that reclaimed him. She pressed a hand to her stomach and imagined it was his. 

_“Always,”_ he said. _“I’ll stay here with you, I promise.”_

But there were no promises, only choices. 

Chloe opened her eyes to the midday sun shimmering upon glassy blue, searing hot. Luka’s lovely phantom vanished from her presence and left her with only the sour tang of salt on her tongue, parched in the heat. 

How could she ever be free when Luka was trapped at the bottom of sea, waiting for death?

A crawling sensation tickled her wrist—a ladybug. It was a tiny creature, out of place on a ship bound for the ends of the Earth. A stowaway, not unlike herself. It would die out here no doubt, fragile little thing. She lifted her hand to better see the bug. 

_“I choose you,”_ Luka had said before sacrificing himself to give her a chance at the freedom she craved. 

Chloe did not choose this. She had never dreamed her choices would land her back here, on a ship she had worked tooth and nail to escape and on her way to find the man who had cost her everything. And yet…

_“What if there’s no choice?”_

The ladybug popped open her shell and took flight toward the sea, fearless and free despite the odds. Chloe leaned on the railing and breathed deeply. She clutched her stomach and smiled sadly. 

“There’s always a choice,” she said. 

If there was time, if there was a way, then she would risk the tides and trenches to tell him hers. 

* * *

 

Adrien found Marinette balancing on one foot when she invited him into her room later that evening. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. 

“You are not disturbing me.” She lowered her foot and faced him, her face neutral but open. “How is your sister?”

“Chloe? You know, she’s…”

Marinette waited for him to go on, but he wasn’t sure what to say. She approached him. “You are troubled.”

“Not troubled, no, more like…anxious.”

“Chloe is upset with you.”

“No, it’s not that.” He thought about Chloe and how she’d run off after Nino confronted them both about their decisions to associate with merlings. There was nowhere to go on a ship at sea, but Adrien had not glimpsed her since lunch all the same. “I am worried about her, though.”

Marinette touched his hand lightly. Her fingers were cold. “So long as she carries the merling child, her life is safe.”

Adrien curled his fingers around hers, grateful for the contact. He brought his other hand over hers and warmed her fingers. “Then I hope we find Luka before she delivers. Do you think he’s still alive?”

Marinette paused, thinking. “A consort’s job is to guard the _Medusa_ and keep her calm until the child is born. He stays with her until it is done. Under normal circumstances, he would be kept alive for this task.”

But these were not normal circumstances. Adrien’s expression fell, disheartened. He didn’t know all the details of what had happened between Chloe and Luka, but he knew he had never before seen her so preoccupied with anyone whose name was not Chloe Bourgeois. If he was lost before they even had a chance to try to find him, what would it do to her? 

“You cannot help him,” Marinette said. There was no cruelty in her tone, simply a matter of fact. “Even if you did find the merling kingdom and he still lived, you cannot help him. You are only human, and so is she.”

“So we shouldn’t even try?”

“If you try, they will kill you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Marinette looked at him like one would a sobbing child, with nothing to do but wait for him to cry himself exhausted. 

“What if it was you?” Adrien asked. “If you were the one taken away, wouldn’t you want someone to come for you?”

“No one would come for me.”

“Sure they would. A friend, or your sisters, or—”

“No,” Marinette interrupted, soft yet stern. Her gaze was no longer with him as she touched the jewel around her throat. “They would not come for me.”

Adrien tightened his hold on her hand until she met his gaze once again. “I would come for you.”

She smiled a sad, knowing smile. “Then you are a lovely fool.”

Adrien wasn’t thinking when he slid his hand to her elbow and stepped closer. His heart thundered beneath his fingers, and he wondered if she could feel it. “I suppose I am.”

“Adrien…”

There was a warning in her tone, but she didn’t pull away. Her stillness emboldened him, and he stepped closer. “Marinette.”

He could smell her this close—the salt on her skin, the breeze in her hair. An oil lamp burned dimly on the desk, and through the high window the moonlight cast pale fingers upon her cheek. 

“Dance with me.”

“Dance?” 

He smiled. “Yes. Your final lesson on your feet. May I?”

She hesitated, unsure, and for a moment he thought she might reject him. But she nodded, and he slowly slipped his hand around her waist. She tensed. 

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I hold you, and you hold me.” He gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

Marinette was stiff, unused to this new position. He waited for her to adjust, and it was all he could do not to lean in closer. Eventually, she relaxed a little and looked up at him. 

“And now?” she asked. Her breath tickled his chin. 

“Follow me.”

He pulled her to him as he stepped back and eased her into a slow waltz. Marinette was unused to the steps, but she soon understood the rhythm he was following. Her blue eyes came alive with interest as she did her best to mimic his steps, get the timing right, and try not to step on his toes. 

Adrien began to hum tunelessly, and Marinette looked up at him in surprise. He smiled and swayed to his own tune and pulled her along with him. Marinette gasped when he released her waist and let her spin out, only to close the distance once more. 

“What are we doing?” she said, a laugh caught in her throat. 

Adrien grinned and suddenly lifted her by the waist for a quick spin. Marinette was so surprised that she gripped his shoulders like she meant to strangle him, but she was back on her feet in seconds and staring up at him, bewildered. 

“Dancing, of course.” He pulled her in again, nearly close enough for their noses to touch. “Do you like it?”

“It’s strange,” she said. “But…nice.”

“It’s better with music, but I’m a poor singer.”

He had meant it self-deprecatingly, but the intensity with which Marinette watched him then warmed him to the point of near discomfort despite her chilled fingers curled around the nape of his neck. 

“Shall I sing for you, then?” she asked. 

Unconsciously, his grip on her waist tightened, and his mouth went dry. “…Would you?”

The moment that lingered was a weightless one, and they two souls adrift in a slow current to destinations unknown. Adrien felt it in the stillness around them, the gentle rocking of the waves beneath their feet as they neared an edge beyond which there was no return. 

Her fingers unfurled around his neck and found the curling ends of his hair. She began to hum, and Adrien felt her voice pull at him like her fingers pulled his hair. He could not be certain when he’d resumed their slow dance to her rhythm. 

_ “A mermaid loved a sailor bold _  
_She took his hand and led him home_  
_Where sunlight sinks and fishes dream_  
_And ne’er squall nor storm may ever reach.”_

Her voice, alchemical, transformed and transported until he no longer felt the room’s confines. Every step was a wave crested, every sway the gentle pull of the tide, deeper and deeper. Adrien stared into the impossible blue of her eyes and wondered if he might lose a piece of himself in them. The thought filled him with a disastrous longing for something he could not name, something just beyond his grasp. 

_ “A sailor loved a mermaid fair  
With ocean eyes and silver hair.” _

Marinette pushed as he pulled, undulating with him along an invisible current that spirited them around and around. Adrien saw constellations in her abyssal blue, nets of light that pulled him as she pushed, pushed, pushed to the wall at his back. He could not say when she’d stolen the lead in their dance, or when they had slowed to a sinking stop. The world around them continued to flutter. Her fingers in his hair. Chest swelled against his. Breath misty upon his lip.

_ “He gave his hand and followed down  
And learned too late that even lovers drown.” _

Adrien shifted around her, somnambulist fingers searching blindly and finding only her. They found her raven hair, long and loose down her back, and plunged within it. Marinette’s lips parted, a warning on her tongue even as her depthless gaze tempted him closer, deeper. 

“I want to drown with you,” he said.

He could see it even now, her hesitancy, her uncertainty, her fear, perhaps. What could a mermaid possibly have to fear? She was powerful, impossible, immutable. She need not fear drowning, unless…unless… 

“Adrien,” she said softly. 

Bewitched but beholden, her voice surrounded him. Carefully, boldly, he traced her moonlit cheek. “Please…let me touch you.”

Marinette’s look changed upon hearing those words, and the whole room seemed to change with her. She met him with a crash, cool lips and sharp nails, and stole more than his breath. There was a coldness in her, a dark, chthonic chill, but the feel of her pressed against him, kissing him, claiming him filled Adrien with a molten longing that made him groan in pleasure. He imagined filling her, sharing everything he had, and watching her come alive as they drowned together. 

The kiss was over all too soon, and he found her watching him, waiting for something. But Adrien did not want to wait a moment longer. He cradled her face in his hands and bent to kiss her again. She parted for him, and he tasted the moonlight that seemed to drink her as much as she drank him, cold yet sweet. His fingers wandered to her shoulders, her waist, the hem of her loose shirt. A swath of pale skin prickled with gooseflesh beneath his fingers, and she arched against his heated palm.

A surprised hiss escaped her lips, and Adrien broke. 

♕

Clothing ripped and buttons popped, his and hers, and soon they were free to explore with tongue and palm alike. He brushed the pad of his thumb over her nipple, delighting at how she shimmered under his touch. Her cheeks flushed with new warmth, and in her eyes he saw himself on the verge of ruin. 

_Ruin me._

The thought went straight to his cock as he imagined what it would be like to be dominated by a creature as powerful and free as the sea itself. 

“Marinette,” he said in a desperate voice.

Her smile was a thing of beauty, knowing and agreeing and just as desperate. She pressed her kiss to his neck as she dragged him down to her level, and they sank into the bed. Adrien fumbled with the laces on her breeches, and she tore at his as if they offended her. He realized then, as she sank her teeth into his lip and her fingers around his hardened length that he had not truly seen her until this moment. Those guarded glances, her aversion to physical contact—it was all a ruse, but not for her sake. 

No, this was the true Marinette, free to take and rule and smother. There was an inescapable danger in her hungry gaze, a promise of destruction in her kiss he never knew he craved. If she didn’t release him, he would lose his mind far too soon. Fumbling for her wrist, he pried her fingers off him and brought them instead to his lips to kiss. 

She was quiet as she stilled and watched him, surprised—at his sudden tenderness, or perhaps over how much she had not expected to enjoy it. She held his gaze a moment, and Adrien felt the weight of her anticipation. He smiled as he kissed her knuckles, reverent. 

“Touch me,” she commanded, her voice thick with longing. 

Her voice was electrifying up his spine, and he eagerly obeyed. He tasted the soft mounds of her breasts, ran his fingers down her humming skin, and caressed her between her thighs. Marinette writhed beneath him when he slipped a finger inside her. She was soft and warm and wet, and gods he had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her. 

Legs entwined, her hold on him was crushing as he pleasured her past her limits. She cried out in a language he did not understand, but that recalled breaking waves and hurricane winds. The sight of her cheeks prettily flushed and her hair splayed wild behind her were nothing compared to the predatory look she trapped him in. She wrenched her fingers in his hair without warning and flipped them over onto his back. 

“Fuck,” Adrien said hoarsely, amazed he was till holding onto his sanity.

Marinette loomed over him, and for a moment he felt his own insignificance in a world that knew one such as her. The moonlight frosted her raven hair in a bath of silver. Blue eyes watched him from the shadows, magical and monstrous and haunting. 

_A sailor loved a mermaid fair, with ocean eyes and silver hair,_ he heard the memory of her enchanting voice fill his veins. 

Her laughter brought him back, soft and almost playful, that same curiosity with which she had first approached him in the water. Drunk on her song and her flesh and the smell of sex, he could do nothing but hold on as she took him inside her. Hands on her hips anchored him to her as she buried him beneath her, each thrust a divine pressure that made it harder to breathe anything that didn’t taste like her. 

_He gave his hand and followed down…_

Marinette dragged his hand to her breast and held him there, where he could feel her heart thunder tempestuous beneath his fingers.

“Mm,” she moaned, lost in the throes of pleasure. She threw her head back, silvered hair cascading down her shoulders. The Ruby at her throat glowed, blood-bright.

_And learned too late that even lovers drown._

Adrien felt the moment when she came, full-body and sensational, and dragged him down with her. Gasping, he held onto her as the tide swept them both away to a dark and quiet place. Drowning was lovely oblivion in a mermaid’s arms. 

♕

* * *

 

Kagami glared at Luka in his prison of stone and whale bones. The trench was long and narrow and very deep. No one knew what lay at the bottom of it, though some desperate souls had gone looking in the past, never to resurface.

“I should just kill you,” she said.

“That’s your right,” he said. “I’m still your consort.”

She set her jaw. The Narwhale blade in her hand offered only minimal comfort. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Because it doesn’t seem like you appreciate the direness of your situation.”

Luka looked up at her through the twisted bone bars. There was no hint of remorse in his silver eyes for what he’d done—what he’d cost them both. “I’m sorry.”

Kagami could hold back her fury no longer. “You’re _sorry_? That was my _Medusa_ you helped escape— _my child_! The one you swore an oath to deliver to me in exchange for the honor of being my consort.”

Luka looked away. 

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, you fucking turntail!”

The prison trench was a distance from the main kingdom to keep prisoners isolated, but even so Kagami glanced behind to her make sure no one was around to witness them. Since she’d dragged Luka back here, there had been no end to the questions and judgmental looks. No man ever broke consort, least of all with the merling queen’s favored daughter.

Luka did as commanded and looked at her, but he did not see her. Kagami had never felt so invisible in her life. 

“I could have chosen anyone,” Kagami hissed. “Other men would have given their scales to be my consort, but none of them were good enough. None of them were _true_ enough, until you.” Her throat knotted painfully, but she ignored it. “You would have had everything with me. All you had to do was the one thing you were raised to do.”

Luka said nothing, but he did her the courtesy of holding her gaze. Kagami no longer gave a shit.

“I’ve always detested our curse. Sending our men to lie with humans… It’s disgusting what we must do to survive. But you…” Her voice caught in her throat, and she bared her fangs in a terrible sneer, lest he see her pain and laugh at her. “Girl or boy, as long as it was your blood, I knew any child you brought me would be worthy of me. I trusted you. I _chose_ you! How could you throw it all away?”

In the gloom of twilight, he was a sad sight to behold. 

_“You’ve always liked the sad ones,”_ Lila said the day Kagami had chosen Luka as her consort above all the rest. _“You’ve always liked protecting them.”_

Even now, Kagami was protecting him from those who would flay him for treason, because he had to have a reason. He wouldn’t just throw it all away. He wouldn’t throw _her_ away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice thick with new emotion Kagami did not understand. “But I can’t choose you.”

_You don’t have a choice!_

The words were on the tip of her tongue, poisonous and burning, but they caught on another painful knot twisting her throat. 

“So what, then? You choose the human? Over your own kind?”

“I choose death,” he said. “I know I can never have her.”

Kagami was silent as she processed her horror at his abominable actions. Her sword hand shook with the sudden and violent urge to hurt him, bleed him until he was rid of whatever madness with which the _Medusa_ had bewitched him, for this could be nothing but a delusion, black and vile. 

But her next thoughts were of Bridgette, and she shuddered with fear. If the merling queen learned the truth, that Luka loved the human he had betrayed his own people to save, he would meet a fate far worse than death. For all he had done and all he had cost her, Kagami knew in her bones that even he did not deserve the full might of Bridgette’s grudge.

“You want that human? You can have her once I’ve brought her here,” Kagami said. “You will finish the job you were given and guard her until her time. I will have the child I was promised, and you… You can use the time to convince our queen you’re not a traitor. Otherwise…” She angled her sword at him through the bars. “I’ll kill you myself.”

At this, Luka betrayed a flicker of fear. “Kagami, no, just forget about her. You said yourself, you could have any man as your consort. Just choose another and forget her. Forget me. I know the consequences for my actions.”

Kagami darted close and snatched him by the hair through the bars. He bared his fangs at her, and she wrenched his hair painfully. “You know _nothing_ of the horror you invite upon us both, you selfish fool. Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?” 

She released him, but her claws caught in his scalp and drew blood. In the inky maw of the trench far below, countless glittering eyes slid open, drawn to the scent in the water. 

“You have a lot to think about,” Kagami said. “Some time in the Trench should clear your head.”

Luka rattled the bars to no avail. “Wait, Kagami! Please, leave Chloe out of it, I beg you!”

Kagami swam off, and his pleas fell upon deaf ears.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrien Agreste is as bottom as the Mariana Trench, and anyone who tries to convince me otherwise is Wrong.
> 
> On another note, all the sea shanties up until this point are actual shanties from the 17th and 18th centuries, but the one Marinette sings here was something I made up. Hopefully it didn’t suck. Poetry is not my wheelhouse, which is probably obvious. I tried.
> 
> Please feel free to leave me a comment on your way out! :)


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